


Hallownest Mercy Run

by ConstantlyStories



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, a lot of speculation on vessels and how they work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25474291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantlyStories/pseuds/ConstantlyStories
Summary: The little ghost of Hallownest, the knight, was the most successful vessel in fighting the Radiance, but they were not the only one to escape the abyss.Many vessels managed to return to the upper levels of Hallownest, and almost as many perished along the way, killed by both infected and uninfected alike. It's hard to stay alive when everything wants you dead. In the hollow shell of what was meant to be an eternal kingdom, mercy is hard to come by. However, like Hallownest, it has not faded entirely.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to post this, but then figured I might as well. I got way too invested in this to not share it with someone.
> 
> Basically, it's me exploring the nature of the vessels, the infection, and whatever happened right before the knight arrived in Hallownest, and doing so through two ocs. I actually have some art that goes with this, so I might post that too.

Much later, Yuu would reflect that they probably loved Aphid from the very beginning. They didn’t have the understanding or vocabulary to describe the feeling back then, but they were pretty sure it was love. After all, that was how they’d describe it now, and the feeling hadn’t changed from when the two first met.

They didn’t have a name back then.

They were just a vessel, one of millions created, one of hundreds that survived their first moments of life, and one of a handful that managed to get out of the abyss before the Pale King locked the door and threw away the key.

The vessel wasn’t entirely sure how they escaped the Abyss. They weren’t the only one to do so, of course, and they were pretty sure they hadn’t been alone when they first found their way into Deepnest.

Those first… weeks? Months? Years? It was hard to tell time when time stood still and the world was plunged into eternal darkness.

Either way, that first stage of their life was filled with the urge to run and hide.

They’d later realize the feeling was fear. So much _fear_ as uncountable crawling things attacked with sharp claws and pincers and mandibles. In the moment, it was just a cold feeling (not good cold like void. Bad cold like an icy fist around their shade) that told them to keep moving. To not stop running even when those around them were claimed by the monsters that crept in the shadows.

Of course, vessels didn’t ‘die’ in the way bugs did. When their shell (mask) broke, they could reform at the last place they were safe. They could then find a way back to retrieve their shade (being shadeless was such a bad feeling. Dreamlike, and everything looked too bright) and then continue on.

It wasn’t a perfect system.

Some vessels were caught in a way that prevented them from reaching their shade in time (if not contained, shades would eventually return to the abyss). Some never found safety outside the abyss and were sent back to it. Others simply stopped trying after being stopped so many times.

None had the words or understanding to express pain, but they did feel it. It felt like shattering, like splintering, like becoming so fragile that a single misstep might cause them to fall to literal pieces. It was the sharp feeling of something breaking, and how void spilled into the air and how their shade pressed hard against its weakened container.

Some vessels learned to use weapons. Amid the countless dead that could be found throughout Deepnest, nails and shells were not hard to find. Many were in poor condition, but having _anything_ was better than having nothing.

The vessel tried as well. They were being chased by a stalking devout (beyond all the others they’d encountered thus far, the stalking devout made that cold urge to run the most unbearable) and found themself cornered. There, they picked up a nail and attempted to defend themself against the razor sharp claws that struck whenever they got too close.

They reformed in a small hollow carved into the rock. There was a stone bench against one wall and a couple bodies in the corner.

The next time the vessel tried using a nail, it was with a bit more success.

Stalking devout were strong and hard to hit. Dirtcarvers were many and attacked in swarms. The vessel was trying to escape a mob when they next picked up the nail of a fallen bug and brandished it against their assailants. They drove the point into a dirtcarver’s shell and felt it thrash and twitch before growing still. Orange splashed the ground and covered the blade.

‘Mercy’ and ‘compassion’ were not words the vessels were made to understand. Technically, they weren’t made to understand _anything_ , but it made sense that those two concepts eluded them more than others. After all, those who had been discarded (all but one) had not been shown either.

Killing the dirtcarver made the vessel’s hands feel funny. Shaky, almost as if they’d been injured. They checked their shell for damage as they ran from the scene. Once safe (or as safe as they could be), they realized that no harm had come to them.

And yet, the shaky feeling didn’t go away for a very long time. It felt as though they were still holding the nail, still feeling the dirtcarver writhe and bleed and then give up whatever life the infection had left it.

They did not pick up a nail again.

It wasn’t clear exactly how long ago the kingdom went into stasis, and the vessel had no way of finding out. All they knew was that, by the time they found a way out of Deepnest, they were alone. Actually, it had been quite some time since they last saw another vessel.

This did not hinder their progress, and thus, they did not think about it (at the time, they didn’t think they thought at all). The feeling of being alone, of not having anyone to turn to or rely on, to protect or be protected by, was familiar. They did not associate it with being away from others.

Light filled one of the caverns. It was not the blinding, burning, screaming light that the vessel knew about (they didn’t recall being told. They presumed they understood in the way that bugs understood above and below, larger and smaller, something and nothing. If one exists, the other must also), but a softer light.

As they ran toward it, the vessel too felt lighter, like a cold weight upon their shoulders had been lifted. (though that didn’t make sense. They did not carry anything, even within their void)

Piles of corpses lined that particular tunnel, bodies of Deepnest creatures piled on top of each other, many still run through by whatever weapon ended their life. These were different from the old and crumbling husks that were scattered throughout Deepnest. Some of these were fresh, orange still pooling on the floor.

Sounds, new sounds, echoed from the other end of the passageway, the source of the light. There seemed to be a large and brightly lit space beyond.

The vessel ran toward it and then skidded to a halt a few steps in.

This new cavern was large and empty compared to the cramped caverns of Deepnest. The air held a strangely humid feel to it (different from the damp and wet of the shadows), and the sound of unfamiliar bugs pattered around from up above.

To the vessel’s left were four thrones. One was demolished. All were empty, though their owners might return soon.

That urge to move, to run and hide, had not faded and in fact, grew stronger the longer the vessel stood and stared at what felt like an entirely new world.

Before they could try to find a safe place, the sound of movement grew closer.

Mantises were new to the vessel. Their speech was strange, their bodies tall and lean, and their claws looked as sharp as any nail.

The group did not waste time and did not hesitate to lunge toward the vessel. Their intent was clear, and suddenly, the vessel did not wonder as to who might have killed all the other bugs outside.

Far too used to such a chase, the vessel too wasted no time. They jumped as soon as a mantis got close and used its head as a springboard to reach higher. There was another level to wherever they were, and as the current cavern only held one other exit (back the way they’d come) it made an attractive escape route.

A boomerang hissed through the air and the vessel ducked just in time before it cut them in half. They used it like a stepping stone, hopping up before another could be thrown, and then scrambling up onto the floor above.

There was not rock beneath their feet.

They did not have time to consider it.

The mantises were right behind them, so close that the vessel imagined they could feel the shadow of their claws. Boomerangs cut through the air, lodging into the walls and ceiling when they missed.

The vessel reached a dead end.

With no way out, they accepted the inevitable. With any luck, their shade would not be hard to retrieve, and the last safe place they’d found was nearby.

However, the killing strike did not come.

Another bug had entered the fray. She was a different kind of bug, though the vessel wasn’t sure of _what_ kind. She was not as tall, her body not as long, and she had what looked like a tail. Four pale wings lay beneath a ragged cloak and there was a dark red scarf tied loosely around her neck. She wore a mask and held a short nail in her hand, pointed toward the three mantises that had been chasing the vessel.

The vessel made to run from this new threat, but she paid them no mind, her back to them as she faced their pursuers.

What was she doing?

The words the group spoke were not words the vessel recognized, but as the bug before them stood her ground, they managed a rough understanding. The three that had been chasing them were younger, probably tasked with maintaining the cavern that housed whoever sat upon those three thrones. They were reluctant to truly fight the bug before them, though they looked like they really wanted to.

There was the sound of more footsteps, and then the angry buzzing of wings.

Before her, the trio of mantises seemed to find their courage, and the one closest to her struck with gleaming claws.

“Run!” The other bug shouted as she caught the blow with the hilt of her nail. Though short, it seemed to reach further than the blade suggested. White burst into the air when she slashed, and the mantis stumbled back.

The vessel did not run at first. So she spoke in the language they knew, the language of the kingdom, of Hallownest.

 _What was she doing?_ Did she want to kill the vessel herself?

Whatever had previously rooted their feet to the spot dissipated, and the vessel found the urge to run seize their chest. While the mantises struggled against their stronger and more skilled opponent, the vessel darted around their legs and back into the main hall.

A boomerang struck the ground, close enough to knock the vessel off their feet. When they looked up, they saw that one of the trio had broken away from the fight.

It raised it’s claws before the vessel could scramble away.

Before it struck, the other bug’s nail was driven into the mantis’s back. White burst into the air, and the taller bug fell.

With the hallway suddenly much quieter, the vessel realized a bell was chiming. It was not a pretty sound, and it did not seem like a good or helpful sound.

“Come on!” The bug left standing leaped over the vessel’s head (more like stepped over. They were very short and she had very long legs) and ran back the way they had come.

The vessel was quick to follow. Everything felt very strange as they ran after that other bug. What was she doing? What did she stand to gain?

The tip of her tail was bright turquoise.

Mantises filled the halls, and she fought again, at first standing between them and the vessel as she did before.

However, there were more this time. Some larger and more skilled, others flighted and quick. Those not involved in the fight went after the vessel.

They ran, but the young flying mantises were faster. Their stingers drove down from above, piercing the vessel’s shell and drawing void with each strike.

There was an awful cracking sound, and then the world spun away.

When the vessel woke, they were back in the hollow with the stone bench and two bodies in the corner.

Usually, they would get up immediately and go in search of their shade. They knew the area better than before, and knew how to return. It was a fair distance.

However, they found themself unwilling to move.

Who was that strange bug? Why did she stand between them and the mantises? _She told them to run._ Why?

They should just let it be. After all, if her goal was to get them away, she certainly failed.

And yet…

The vessel hopped off the bench and began the trek back to the tunnel with the light. Hopefully, their shade would be close by.

As they walked, the scene replayed over and over in their head. The strangely warm and sinking feeling of facing destruction. The cold and sharp when they realized that something was preventing their immediate demise. Another warm (this one good) feeling when she told them to run the second time. The first didn’t make sense. The second said that she wanted them to escape.

And what became of her?

The vessel paused, suddenly unable to move forward. They stood on an isolated ledge that hung over a pit of spikes. Not ideal, but they couldn’t help it. Their body felt light in a bad way, like they were about to float away into the darkness.

Whoever that bug was, she was most likely dead.

It shouldn’t bother them. They shouldn’t care. What did her life or death have to do with their purpose, the need to return to the surface and face the light that encroached on their world?

She would have been useful if she’d succeeded, but the vessel had still been broken, still sent back to the hollow in Deepnest.

There was a reason that this vessel was not considered pure.

The weird floaty feeling faded a bit, but there was a sharp feeling in their chest as they ran. They checked multiple times to make sure they hadn’t gotten hurt, but there was no wound. It hurt, and the thought of finding that bug’s broken shell among the others outside the mantis’s cavern made it hurt worse.

Perhaps it was a new effect from losing their shade, or being so far away from it.

When they reached the hall of corpses, she wasn’t there.

The vessel’s shade hovered in the mouth of the tunnel, just before the end that had led into the mantis’s village. The door was closed, and no light escaped.

The shade drifted forward.

Wrestling with their shade was never fun, but they managed to return it to themself. Now complete, they no longer felt so fragile, but the pain in their chest didn’t go away.

They took a moment to scan their surroundings. At first glance, they didn’t see her (the bright turquoise of her tail and the iridescence of her wings would’ve stood out amid the dirtcarvers and deeplings), but they wanted to make sure.

She truly was not present among the dead, and the sharp feeling in their chest dissipated a bit.

They still had no definitive answer regarding her fate, but at least they didn’t have to see her, bloody and broken and tossed aside with the rest of the beasts.

With the path through the mantis village now closed, the vessel returned to the shadows of Deepnest. They hadn’t had the chance to explore this area yet, and it looked to be more developed than others. Perhaps there was another way out.

The vessel climbed upwards. The void lay below the very bottom of the kingdom, so it only made sense that the light lay above the top. Where was the highest peak in Hallownest?

Spiked pits and scurrying deeplings and swarming dirtcarvers made the trek slow. The caverns became even narrower, and the climb was steep. All around, creatures made noise in the dark, and enemies lurked in every shadow.

The vessel didn’t like this area much. There was too much of that desire to run and too little space to do so. They’d hide, but there were no spaces both large enough for the vessel and too small for others to get in.

Perhaps this wasn’t the way after all. Maybe they should just go back.

They paused in a particularly dark corridor.

Every once in a while, their mask would start feeling heavy, and their legs would refuse to move as fast as before. The urge to sit or lie down started as a whispering suggestion but then grew to overwhelming if ignored.

It was bad to sit down while being chased by something, so the vessel found a somewhat sheltered corner of the room and curled up in it. Eventually, the heavy feeling would go away and they could continue.

Nearby, something twitched and hissed. There was an awful cracking sound, the sound of a shell being cracked open.

All at once, the heavy feeling was gone, replaced by the need to escape and the cold energy that came with it. The vessel’s corner would do nothing to protect them if they were found, so they had to run.

But where was the danger? No footsteps were approaching, and there wasn’t the telltale shaking of the earth to signal a dirtcarver’s arrival.

The vessel stood and then crept forward. They naturally made very little noise but still took great care to become even quieter.

One of the corpses they’d noticed earlier was moving. Was it alive? Did they mistake a living threat for dead?

No. It moved and twitched in an unnatural way. It jerked and twisted in ways that ordinary bugs should not, and long black legs burst from its shell.

The vessel did not wait to see what it did next.

They darted forward, passing the corpse creeper before it could corner them. There was a narrower tunnel that branched off from the passage by which the vessel had come, and despite it leading downward, it seemed a better option than returning.

As it was, it was too late to turn back anyhow.

The corpse creeper hissed and spit, its too-long legs skittering at the walls as it gave chase. Its back scraped along the rocky ceiling when it got too low, but the creature did not seem to mind, dead set on destroying the vessel before it.

It was getting closer.

Was the last safe place the vessel had found still that hollow so far away? It had been a journey to return to this part of Deepnest, and this time they’d traveled even further. This area had been the most promising so far (the mantis village ended in disaster, but it was something!) and being set back so far would be tedious, if not fatal, should the vessel be returned to the previous section.

The corpse creeper’s front legs grasped at the vessel, barbs snagging on their cloak and slicing across their body.

The vessel lurched forward, propelled by the burst of damage. They pressed small hands to the wound and tried to ignore the fragile feeling that accompanied it.

Another strike, and the vessel threw themselves sideways to dodge. They managed to escape the first set of barbed legs, but the second reached for them as well.

Sharp caught against the vessel’s leg before they could scramble away.

Again came the warm and sinking feeling of confronting the inevitable. The vessel wasn’t fast enough, they were damaged, and there wasn’t another bug to come between them and the corpse creeper.

The reluctant acceptance blinded them to all else. The vessel didn’t see the way the ground dropped off until they were already falling.

Did the corpse creeper follow? It was impossible to tell. The rushing air blocked all other sounds, and the vessel’s momentum made it hard to twist enough to see if they were still being chased.

The tunnel narrowed until the rock nearly grazed the vessel on all sides. Then it opened up into a bright space.

_Splash_!


	2. Chapter 2

The vessel landed in some kind of liquid.

The pool was not deep, the water reaching their chest when they stood. It glowed bright enough to illuminate the entire cavern, and was surprisingly warm. As the vessel waded to the other side, the heat seeped into their shell, healing their recent wounds but also erasing all the smaller scrapes and hurts they’d picked up along their journey.

Soul. The vessel knew what soul was (it was as instinctual as knowing the light and the void) but they’d never seen so much in one place. The water was charged with it, the energy giving it its glow.

The vessel had seen their siblings use soul to heal. They’d strike enemies with nails or shells or whatever weapons they’d picked up, and then absorb the soul that came out. This vessel did not have a weapon and did not fight, so they never collected any soul.

As it turned out, soul felt nice. It made them feel stronger, and the way ahead was just a bit less daunting.

Refreshed and recharged the vessel needed to keep moving. If they were intending to explore the upper levels of Deepnest, this fall set them back greatly.

Looking up, it was hard to tell just how far they’d fallen. The tunnel was narrow and ended in only darkness. The only good thing that came out of it was that the corpse creeper would not be able to pass through the narrower part.

Despite knowing they needed to move, the vessel stayed put. They sat at the edge of the pool, sinking down until the water reached their chin. After the cold of Deepnest, the heat felt wonderful, like being wrapped in something soft and safe.

Speaking of which, was this place safe?

The vessel slowly looked around. There were no enemies, no infected bugs, and nothing was leaping out of the ground with the intent to kill. There weren’t even any corpses for creepers to possess.

A little way away sat a bench. This one wasn’t stone but was metal, thin pieces twisted in ornate shapes.

Bugs built benches as resting points, safe places for wanderers and communal hubs in friendly neighborhoods. Even as the kingdom fell to infection and the number of beasts overtook the number of bugs, this remained true.

As safe places went, this was by far the vessel’s favorite.

The heat was accompanied by the return of the heavy feeling in their mask. Their limbs felt too weak to move and the gentle caress of the water was entirely too convincing.

The vessel stayed, though they didn’t know how long. The world went in and out of focus as it did when the heavy and weak feeling got this strong.

Everything must come to an end.

Body returned to peak condition, the vessel stood and stepped out of the hot spring. They were quite reluctant to do so, but the knowledge that they could come back to the place left a bright feeling fluttering in their chest. (Optimism was a foreign concept back then).

Just beyond the hot spring’s glow, the rest of Deepnest lay in wait, no less dangerous despite the vessel’s boost in confidence.

They saw her again in the place where the garpedes still ran their endless circuits.

The noise was deafening and the ground shook, blocking out everything aside from the massive bugs that were responsible. Their many feet pounded the earth and their long, segmented shells glinted dimly in whatever light managed to reach that far.

It was an intimidating obstacle, and as it held no promise of an escape from Deepnest, the vessel made to go back to the hot spring. There had been another way to go from there, and surely, it would be easier than this.

Then, a different kind of movement caught their eye.

The flash of a bright tail, the glint of iridescent wings, and the funny sense that the vessel wasn’t alone drew them forward despite the danger. Was it her? They needed to find out.

Running around and dodging the garpedes was not easy. The vessel was so small they could easily be trampled. The garpedes probably wouldn’t even slow down should that happen.

Ahead, the familiar bug ran. She most likely didn’t know the vessel was there. They were a near silent being, and the sound of the garpedes made sure she wouldn’t hear them even if they weren’t.

They darted across a garpede’s path, and in their haste to make it to the other side, didn’t realize the ground dropped down again. It was a short fall, but it put them out of the way. When they dragged themself back up, they didn’t see the bug anymore.

A strange, almost itchy feeling writhed in their chest and had their body tense. Where did she go? They’d been close to catching up before they fell into that hole! And now she was gone and they had no way to track her.

The vessel walked in the direction they last saw her go. They might have lost her trail for good, in which case, they wanted to get away from the garpede’s territory. The sound and movement was beginning to make their mask feel like it was vibrating, and the feeling was very distracting.

Apparently so distracting that the vessel didn’t realize when they’d crossed a garpede’s path at a very bad place at the very wrong time.

They managed to dart aside before getting crushed by the first, but that only put them in the path of a second. They ran blindly, not caring about the direction as long as it led away. When they found a gap overhead, they scrambled up to it just as the garpede thundered through the path they’d been on hardly a moment before.

No time to stop. Wherever they were, this section had the garpedes running very close to each other. Dodging one only put them in the path of another, and this time, they’d gotten too close.

A flash of something white appeared up ahead. It was the other bug, her mask near glowing against the dark. She was looking at the vessel, expression hidden behind the narrow eyeholes.

“You!” she exclaimed.

A garpede struck the vessel from behind.

They were back at the hot spring.

The vessel hopped off the bench and ran back in the direction of their shade. The way everything had happened made them burn and want to hit something. What a terrible time to get run over!

Their shade was where they’d left it, but the other bug was gone.

Still wrestling with the desire to run (this time _toward_ something rather than away) the vessel continued on. Perhaps she crossed to the other side of the garpede’s territory. Even if she hadn’t, they still wanted to get across.

Vessels were not made to question or wonder. Thus, the vessel did not look too closely at how their attentions shifted from ‘escape Deepnest’ to ‘find the strange bug who tried to stand between them and death’.

They still didn’t understand, but they so badly wanted to _know_. They’d never really _wanted_ anything before, not like this. There was the occasional urge to stop traveling for a while or to look at a particularly strange corpse or to poke at an unfamiliar plant, but those were easily brushed aside.

No, they _had_ to know why that bug did what she did.

The vessel dropped down into another lower cavern and the sound of the garpedes finally began to die down. The noise and motion made the vessel’s mask feel like it was shaking and the sudden silence made a ringing sound (bad sound), but at least they’d made it.

Back to the relative silence, (never completely silent. There’s always _something_ lurking in the shadows) the vessel continued on ahead.

There was even more abandoned construction on this side of the garpedes, old and broken machinery, abandoned halls, corpses piled high in the corners. This must be another place where Deepnest met with the rest of Hallownest.

There was shouting up ahead.

Her again!

The vessel followed the sound to another cavern. That bug was there, attempting to fight off a swarm of dirtcarvers. Her short nail slashed through the air, sending a few staggering backward, but there were so many. So many, and she was beginning to move slower than before.

A mix of soul and infection tainted the air.

The vessel ran forward. It was illogical, reckless, and entirely pointless. She held no value to them, was just a distraction from their purpose. They should be glad she was distracting the dirtcarvers and leave it at that.

They didn’t want to see her die.

After all, they still wanted answers. (they had no time or will to examine any other reason)

The vessel did not carry a weapon, but they’d discovered long ago that rocks were useful in such a time. They did very little damage, but acted well as a distraction.

Rocks bounced off the shells of dirtcarvers. As expected, this did little (if any) damage, but a few turned away from the other bug and began skittering toward the vessel.

“You again?” the other bug said. Her nail slashed in a gleaming arc, and a dirtcarver was sliced in two.

The vessel didn’t have an answer to that. They threw another rock and then darted away before the dirtcarvers could catch them.

Another rock, another distracted dirtcarver, and then another strike from a nail. There were fewer enemies, which was good. The vessel was damaged and had no way to heal. They lost any soul they’d gained from the hot spring (forgot to recharge after being sent back this time) and there wasn’t time to focus anyway.

A mistake. The vessel threw too slow, the other bug struck the wrong dirtcarver. A dirtcarver’s claw snagged the end of her scarf, forcing her to the ground by her neck. She was back on her feet a moment later, looking much more haggard than before.

“You should run,” the tall bug panted. A dirtcarver broke through the ground at her feet, and she jumped aside before it could grab her legs.

The vessel paused, rock held midair. She was telling them to run again, and they felt like they couldn’t move.

“Don’t be stubborn,” she continued. “I can take care of the rest.”

The vessel didn’t believe her. A million different feelings were flooding them at once, each more insistent than the last. They both needed to get away from there.

The other bug was moving slower still. Another slash of her nail drove the few remaining dirtcarvers back, but she couldn’t keep it up for long. She was panting and shaking, one hand pressed hard to her side. Blood and soul leaked between her fingers and dripped onto the cold stone floor.

Her next strike missed and a dirtcarver lunged forward. Its scrabbling front claws hooked in her tattered cloak as it pushed forward, sending both bugs to the ground.

What happened next was an act of logic and nothing more. The vessel had found her, and now they had to keep her alive. It only made sense: if killed, they would come back, and she would not.

She couldn’t die, she couldn’t die, she couldn’t die.

Rock in hand, the vessel ran forward as the last few dirtcarvers began to swarm. The beastly bugs were nearly as big as the vessel themself, and probably weighed twice as much.

Still, the one closest to the vessel was knocked off its feet when they tackled it.

The two rolled from the impact, vessel repeatedly bashing the rock against the dirtcarver’s snapping mandibles. This did not do much, but it prevented said mandibles from clamping down on their neck.

The other bug shouted something that they didn’t hear. They couldn’t see! The dirtcarver slashing at their mask wouldn’t let up, and they weren’t strong enough to break its shell even with a rock.

The vessel shoved the rock deep into the dirtcarver’s jaws and kicked it away when it choked and flailed.

Behind them, a dirtcarver was kicked into the wall hard enough that its shell cracked. Only one remained, and the other bug drove her nail through its head.

The dirtcarver she’d kicked seemed to lose its nerve now that the rest of its company was gone. It dove into the ground before it too could be impaled.

The dirtcarver the vessel had tackled was still choking and flailing and making terrible noises, but it wasn’t a threat anymore.

A few paces away, the other bug coughed into her hand. She sat on her knees, apparently too exhausted to stand. Her cloak was stained with blood and infection and soul still spilled from the wound at her side.

Her head tilted, considering the vessel. Her mask was simple, dark holes for eyes and smaller black dots above. Horns curved from the top in a strange pattern, flaring out before curling inward again, flanking a near perfect circle in the center.

“Well,” she said after a pause. “That sucked.”

The vessel stepped forward. Their own legs were shaking, and void floated from somewhere. They needed to get back to the hot spring.

“What _are_ you?” the other bug asked. Her voice was rough and she made no move to stand.

There was no time to answer (not that the vessel could anyway). If the two stayed there, they would die. The dirtcarvers would return and bring even more. Deeplings crawled the walls and corpse creepers lurked out of sight.

“We should get out of here,” the other bug muttered. She looked around carefully. “I think there’s a safer spot back that way.” Her hand shook as she raised it, pointing to a dark corridor that the vessel hadn’t noticed before.

No. They were not going to go that way.

The vessel started back the way they had come, pausing when they were a good distance away and didn’t hear any other movement. Was she going to follow?

“You want to go back through the garpedes?”

The vessel pointed. They had no other way to tell her about the hot spring, so they hoped she’d just follow.

“Fine.” She slowly unwound the scarf from her neck and proceeded to wrap it tight around the wound at her side. Blood seeped through the fabric, staining it even darker.

When she stood, her legs shook, and she needed to brace a hand against the wall for a long moment. Then, finally, finally, she made to follow the vessel.

They kept ahead, making sure the coast was clear before she could reach them. When they were sure it was, they ran back to see if the two were about to be ambushed.

Between the two, the vessel was in better condition (another strike would send them the short way back to the hot spring, but at least they could move almost normally), but both were hurt. Another fight would be disastrous, if not fatal.

She couldn’t die. She tried to protect them twice. (They reasoned they wanted to repay her in kind, though they couldn’t find a logical reason why)

Logic told them to run. To run as fast as they could, all the way back to the hot spring, and not stop until they reached the healing water. However, for the first time, the urge to run didn’t claim them. The cold/hot need to escape in any way possible eluded them, and there was an eerie quiet feeling in their shell when the vessel again ran ahead to repeat their guard route.

“You’re kinda panicky for someone who lives down here,” the bug said.

Considering the kinds of bugs that also lived in Deepnest, the vessel figured they were exactly the right amount of panicky (whatever that meant).

The sound of garpedes soon drowned out all other noise. If the bug attempted to speak, the vessel didn’t hear it. They were more focused on getting across the garpede tracks in one piece. They were still fast enough to dart across between garpedes, but could she?

Apparently so. Despite how slowly she moved before, the bug was able to dash forward when she reached the first garpede track. When the vessel paused to watch, she waved a hand, gesturing for them to continue on.

The going was very slow. The vessel’s mask was ringing again when the two finally made it to the other side.

“Y’know,” the bug said as soon as the garpedes were behind them. “I really hope you’re not leading me into some kind of trap.”

The vessel stopped and looked back. If she thought they were deceiving her, why did she follow?

The scarf tied around her midsection was soaked through, blood beginning to drip from the fabric. She’d crossed the garpedes just fine, but she was leaning against the wall again, limbs shaking as she stood.

“That was a joke,” the bug said. She waved a bloody hand, gesturing for them to keep walking. “Doesn’t really matter to me now anyway.”

Unsure of what else to do, the vessel took a step closer and pointed in the direction of the hot spring. All the two had to do was turn the corner, and then the glow would be in sight. Already, the tunnel looked just a tiny bit less dark.

The injured bug limped forward a slow step and the vessel ran on ahead to the end of the path. As they thought, the way to the hot spring was clear. They were so close! They could see the bench and feel the humid air that drifted from the glowing cavern.

The vessel pointed again, urging the other bug to keep going.

“What…?” the bug hesitated when she caught up. One hand rose to partially shield the eyeholes of her mask. “What _is_ that?”

The vessel pointed again, this time waving their hand up and down as quickly as they dared. More void spilled into the air.

They let her go first so they could make sure there was nothing following. When they were sure that nothing was, they followed close behind.


	3. Chapter 3

Bypassing the bench, the bug made for the glowing pool as soon as she stepped foot into the room. She nearly fell over when she could no longer lean against the wall, and then when she reached the water, she all but fell in.

The vessel jumped at the sound and ran to the edge to make sure she wasn’t drowning.

She wasn’t, chin propped up against the edge of the water, just high enough that she could breathe. The rest of her narrow body was underwater, cloak weighed down once wet and wings floating when she made no attempt to pull them close.

Once certain she wasn’t about to die, the vessel splashed into the water themself.

Warmth flooded their body as they sank down until the water lapped at their chin. Already, they could feel their wounds healing as soul flowed through them. Void stopped dripping from wherever they’d been damaged, and they felt whole again.

Closer to the edge, the other bug watched them. The light illuminated her mask in an unsettling way, highlighting just how little of her face the vessel could see.

“I’m Aphid,” she told them. “You?”

Aphid? Well, at least the vessel had something to call her.

They waded closer to the shallower area, where the water wouldn’t go over their head when they sat.

Now that she, Aphid, was there, now that the two were safe, the vessel realized they didn’t really have a way to ask any of the many questions burning beneath their shell. They wanted to know where she came from and how she survived the mantises. They wanted to know who she was (beyond her name) and why she stopped the mantises from killing them. Why, even injured and bleeding, she told them to run.

“You’re a quiet one, huh?” Aphid sighed. “Can you speak at all?”

The vessel shook their head.

“I see.” She turned her head, settling more comfortably against the rock. “Thanks for your help earlier.”

The vessel jumped at the statement and patted the ground hard enough that Aphid startled.

“Yeah?” she hissed, wincing at an unseen pain. Most of her body was obscured by the spring’s bright glow. Did the hot springs heal normal bugs the way they did vessels?

Unable to elaborate, the vessel patted the ground again and then pointed up, vaguely referring to both the mantis village and the tunnel they’d fallen through.

“Oh, that. The mantises,” she said slowly, turning her gaze to the ceiling. “They guard the gate and make sure all the weird stuff from Deepnest stays in Deepnest.”

The vessel had gathered as much from the corpses piled on Deepnest’s side of the door.

“Ever since I got there, all that’s ever come up were infected creatures. We cleared out both bug and beast, any who had lost their mind to the light. You’re the first actually living thing that’s come from Deepnest in a very long time.”

The first _living_ thing? For some reason, that description made the vessel squirm. It felt like a statement they knew was wrong, but it also felt nice to hear. Warm, not unlike the hotspring, but also different.

“That, and I felt bad when I saw you getting chased down the hall,” Aphid added. “You’re also the smallest thing I’ve ever seen come out of Deepnest.”

That sounded more accurate, though it didn’t give the same nice feeling.

When Aphid didn’t elaborate further, the vessel stood and headed for the edge of the hot spring.

That was that. Aphid was alive, the vessel was healed, and they’d gotten their answer. They needed to return to their original purpose. They’d been trying to reach the upper levels of Deepnest, right? Given how far they’d fallen, they had a long way to go.

It was hard to leave the water. Would they ever have the chance to collect this much soul again? If they traveled beyond the hot spring’s area, would they ever find such a safe place in Deepnest?

It shouldn’t matter. They had a purpose and they’d set it aside for long enough.

Still, they hesitated.

What about Aphid? Would they see her again?

The vessel needed to leave, but they didn’t want to. Deepnest was dangerous and there were no fewer hostile entities crawling through the shadows. What if they ran into another swarm of dirtcarvers? Of corpse creepers? Any other horrible beast that called Deepnest home?

They still hadn’t moved.

“You got a name?” Aphid asked again.

Of course they didn’t. The void is the void. It has been called many things, and none of them really meant anything. The void is the void and vessels are vessels. There was never any need for distinction outside of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’, and it wasn’t much of a distinction since there was only one of the first.

“Right, right,” Aphid said when the vessel remained silent. “Can’t speak. Can you write?”

The vessel shook their head.

“Draw?”

They’d never tried, but if it was anything like writing, then probably not.

Aphid hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I gotta call you _something_. I’m not just gonna call ya ‘you’ forever.”

The vessel didn’t see why there was a problem with that. ‘You’. It was just a word, and they supposed it _would_ make things easier.

You.

The two fell silent for a very long while.

Aphid untied her scarf from around her middle and scrubbed at the fabric. The dark stains slowly faded, and the ever-moving water washed the rest away. When that was done, she tended to her torn and ragged cloak. The ends were frayed and there were holes torn through in places. A charm held it in place, pinned at her collar.

Deepnest crawled just outside of range of the light.

Yuu stared down at their hands, letting the world phase in and out of focus as they relaxed against the rocks. The pause in movement was pointless, but they couldn’t bring themself to leave. The warmth and the water were nice. Sitting with Aphid was nice, even as she dozed off, dead to the world.

As it always seemed to be in Hallownest, time passed in a way that felt endless. It was hard to say how long the two stayed there, sheltered by the light and soul of the hot spring.

Aphid slowly got to her feet. Glowing water dripped down her shell and off the ends of her wings as she stepped out of the hot spring. Once a few steps away, she wrung the water out from her cloak and scarf.

“I never understood what the deal is with Hallownest and its glowing stuff,” Aphid sighed. “Glowing king, glowing water, creepy glowing infection everywhere…” she drew her nail, carefully testing the edge of the blade. “Whatever they had here, I guess I’m grateful for it. I’m not used to feeling good as new hardly an hour after getting my tail kicked that badly.”

Aphid took another few steps away and Yuu watched as she looped her still-damp scarf loosely around her neck and then fastened her nail to her belt. She adjusted her mask and looked across the cavern to where another tunnel led back into the darker parts of Deepnest.

“This place is nice, but I can’t stay here,” Aphid said. Seeming satisfied with the state of herself, she started a slow circuit around the hot spring, heading toward the other exit.

Yuu likewise got to their feet. They didn’t know why, but they felt that they should. She was leaving. That meant they should too, as they were already running out of excuses for their lack of progress.

Aphid walked to where the light spilled out into the unknown darkness. She peered out into the shadows, balancing on her toes as she leaned further forward.

Yuu looked back in the direction of the garpedes. They hadn’t found what lay at the end of that direction. They should finish their exploration.

“I’ll be seein’ you, yeah? Try to stay safe. Good luck.” Aphid turned and was gone, the bright turquoise of her tail flashing in the light before disappearing around the corner.

There was no thinking, just movement. The next thing Yuu knew, they were running to catch up. Later, they would reason that the benefit of having an ally outweighed any setbacks she might cause. Besides, Yuu didn’t know exactly where they were going anyway. Might as well go where Aphid was until they knew better.

They had to make sure she was going to be ok.

“I hope you’re not looking for protection or good company,” Aphid said when Yuu reached her side.

They didn’t have a response to that, so they didn’t try.

“If you want to follow me, I won’t stop you. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

Despite Aphid’s less than encouraging warning, Yuu stuck close to her when she started again back into the shadows. Her legs were longer than Yuu’s entire body, and they had to run to keep up. In some places, Aphid was forced to wait while they scrambled up a rockslide that she cleared in a single leap.

She didn’t leave them behind, though.

The terrain grew rocky and steep. At one point, any sort of trail disappeared entirely, leaving the two to struggle forward along broken pieces of rock and ground.

Further down, some kind of horrible amalgamation with countless legs hissed and screeched, writhing in a mass of shell segments and legs and mandibles.

Creatures struck from the shadows, just as Yuu knew they would. They attacked with fangs and claws and hissing mandibles. Most fell to Aphid’s nail. The more Yuu saw her use it, the more certain they were that some kind of magic extended the blade’s reach beyond the metal edge.

Aphid withdrew her nail from the punctured shell of a fallen deephunter, hissing as infection clung to the metal. She was busy wiping the orange from her weapon and didn’t see the deepling that crouched on the ceiling.

Yuu jumped up, using Aphid’s shoulder as a springboard to launch themself at the deepling before it could spit its poison.

Both Aphid and the deepling made noises of surprise as Yuu and the infected bug tumbled to the ground. The two rolled across the rock, the deepling hissing and spitting and Yuu flailing in an attempt to get it off of them.

There was the wet crunch of metal puncturing through shell and the deepling went limp. Orange spilled from its chest where Aphid’s nail pierced all the way through.

“You keep doing that,” Aphid muttered. She withdrew her nail and pushed the deepling aside. “Why don’t you carry a weapon? There are a million old nails lying around.”

Yuu got to their feet. The deepling’s poison left them shaky and damaged, and they wobbled before being able to right themself. Once standing, they took a moment to focus, using some of the soul they’d collected to heal whatever had been damaged.

“Be more careful, will you?” Aphid said. She was cleaning her nail again, though her mask was tilted toward Yuu.

There was no way to tell her that there was no need. They still had soul from the hot spring. They could heal, and if destroyed, they would come back. Aphid would not.

Yuu didn’t think the subject warranted much conversation, but Aphid still hesitated, nail bouncing lightly in her hand as she considered them.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

Yuu nodded. Their body tended to reflect the temperature around them (a few degrees cooler closer to their void). Deepnest was cold.

It didn’t bother them the way it might bother a bug, and though they enjoyed the warmth of the hot spring, they could function just fine with the chill, but there was no way to communicate that either.

As they watched, Aphid returned her nail to its place on her belt and then reached up to unwind her scarf. “Here.” She knelt to carefully drape the fabric over Yuu’s shoulders.

It was so big (or Yuu was so small) that the scarf looped loosely around their shoulders twice, and still, one of the ends dragged along the ground if they didn’t hold it. Aphid stood and Yuu clutched the fabric in their small hands, hugging it close. The fabric was soft and made a light barrier against the cold, but Yuu didn’t think the warm feeling that settled in their chest had much to do with the physical temperature. How interesting.

She wanted them to be warm.

“Well, maybe that made things worse,” Aphid said, but her voice was light (amused). “I can take it back if it gets in the way too much, but if you want to keep it, it’s yours.”

She gave them something. It’s Yuu’s now?

Aphid turned and started up the next rocky slope.

Yuu gathered up the trailing end of the scarf and held it close as they scrambled to follow. It made moving more difficult, their arms too full to properly balance, but they decided there and then that they couldn’t set it down. Aphid gave it to them. They’d never owned anything before. They wanted to keep it.

Everything in Deepnest pretty much looked the same, but Yuu was fairly certain they and Aphid were traveling in a vaguely northwestern direction. The further they went, the more pits, filled with writhing bugs, appeared along the ground. The dirtcarvers didn’t seem to come this far west, which seemed like a good sign until the two travelers encountered a stalking devout.

“Oh _geez_ , you’re ugly,” Aphid hissed, leaping back as the larger bug charged forward, claws slashing through the air like curved nails.

Yuu stood a few paces back, peering around Aphid’s legs so they could better see the new threat. Despite this time having another bug with them (which automatically raised their chance of survival, if just by a bit), the sight of those gleaming claws sent the urge to run plunging through Yuu’s stomach.

The stalking devout retreated a few steps, claws withdrawn into its shell.

Aphid drew her nail but didn’t make a move forward.

Yuu tugged at the edge of her cloak before she could.

“Yeah?” Aphid said. She didn’t look down, didn’t take her eyes off the bug before her.

Yuu pointed back the way the two had come. Stalking devout were no joke. Yuu had never seen one be killed, but they’d seen plenty of vessels fall to their claws. Perhaps Aphid was skilled enough to bring one down, but Yuu very much didn’t want to test it.

“What is this thing?” Aphid said, ignoring how Yuu’s gesturing grew more frantic. She took a few steps forward, nail held warily before her.

The stalking devout lunged forward again, and Aphid jumped back. When she was out of reach, the devout began to retreat again.

Before it could, Aphid dashed forward nearly too fast to be seen. Her nail slashed through the air once before the stalking devout attacked again and she was forced to dart back to where Yuu stood and watched the scene unfold.

They couldn’t move, feeling as if their feet were frozen to the ground as Aphid repeated the pattern, darting forward and attacking when the devout retreated and then leaping back out of reach before the claws could reach her.

There was no way for Yuu to help; they already knew how ineffective a vessel (particularly an unarmed vessel) was against the hulking bugs and their whirlwind claws. All they could do was stand and watch, clutching their scarf to their mask and trying not to notice the near painful feeling that exploded in their chest every time Aphid danced within an antenna’s breadth of the devout’s claws.

At the very least, behind them, all other bugs seemed to keep their distance. Where there were stalking devout, there were weavers, but so far, none seemed to notice the deadly dance taking place on their territory.

The dance brought Aphid too close to the slashing claws. There was the sound of claws striking something hard (Aphid’s mask). Aphid hissed and cursed and drove her nail forward with enough force to shove the devout back a step.

Yuu found themself able to move again, racing forward with the full intention of putting themself between Aphid and the stalking devout. They were a pace away when the thing gave a gurgling hiss and collapsed.

Aphid stumbled back a few steps, panting and shaking slightly. Her nail dripped orange and there were shallow cuts along her arms.

Yuu realized they were shaking just as badly (if not worse) despite having not been involved. The stalking devout never even noticed them. Why did they feel as if they too just barely survived the encounter?

Beside them, Aphid returned her nail to her belt and straightened her cloak. She looked back to where Yuu had been when the fight started and then seemed surprised to see them at her side instead.

“Are you –?” She broke off and was silent for a moment. Then “I wouldn’t have let it get close to you. I’m sorry if you were scared.”

Scared. Was that the word for the terrible shaking, shivering, need-to-run-and-hide feeling that had gripped them? The same feeling that had taken hold of them the moment they found themself in Deepnest? Scared. It didn’t feel big enough a word to encompass the way Yuu’s legs shook despite knowing the stalking devout was dead.

Though her expression was concealed behind her mask, Aphid still seemed uncertain. “It’s going to be alright. We can get by now, but we come across another one, I’ll just go around. I don’t think I have the patience to do that song and dance again anyhow.”

She led the way around the stalking devout’s corpse and then into the passage beyond.

Yuu was quick to follow, the scared fueling their mad dash forward.

It took a long while for the scared to fade a bit, but soon Yuu was more focused on other things. They didn’t encounter any more stalking devout, but there were more little weavers. The round and many-legged bugs seemed to crawl in out of nowhere, balancing along invisible strands of silk so they could drop down onto the two travelers.

Yuu didn’t like them, but Aphid was good at batting them out of the air when she noticed in time. Long, sweeping arcs of her nail sliced open their undersides and sent them spinning off into the dark.

When she didn’t notice in time, Yuu jumped up to meet the weaver midair, knocking it off course and sending them both bouncing across the rocks.

The little weaver’s legs scratched at Yuu’s shell and its silk tangled in their scarf. The vessel thrashed and kicked, hands keeping the concealed fangs at bay. The struggle placed them close to the edge of the rock shelf Aphid and Yuu had been standing on. Below, the ground was so far away that it was lost in the shadows.

Before both could roll off the edge, Aphid grabbed the little weaver, tearing it away from Yuu and then stabbing it with her nail.

Yuu looked down at their scarf and carefully plucked the remaining silk threads off.

“You keep _doing_ that,” Aphid said again, her voice coming out more as a hiss. “Do you not have _any_ sense of self-preservation?”

Yuu continued to adjust their scarf. They were scared (from the struggle with the little weaver? Or is this left over from the stalking devout? Or maybe it was just the natural state of wandering through Deepnest) and the repetitive movement gave their hands something to do, which made them feel just a bit less like running.

“Hey,” Aphid said, reclaiming the vessel’s attention. “Are you listening to me?”

Yuu looked up at her, though their hands continued to fiddle with the frayed hem of their scarf.

“I was in bad shape after the dirtcarvers, I’ll admit it, but I’m fine now. I guess you haven’t seen the greatest examples of it, but I’m actually considered a good fighter. Stop throwing yourself into danger.”

Yuu’s hands stilled. They couldn’t tell if she was mad at them or not. Her voice was firm, but it lacked the rough edge that usually accompanied anger.

“I worry about you,” Aphid continued. “You don’t even carry a weapon. I just don’t want to see you hurt, alright?”

Yuu focused for a moment, letting the stored soul heal the cuts along their shell.

“That doesn’t make things better. You can’t heal if you’re dead.”

Surely all the fuss was because she didn’t understand a vessel’s nature. She didn’t realize that they could come back, and Yuu had no way of explaining. If she knew the difference, she would see that Yuu was being perfectly reasonable.

Aphid looked like she was waiting for some kind of response, so Yuu nodded.

“If you want, I can teach you how to use a nail,” Aphid sighed, turning back to the way ahead. “I’m sure we’ll come across one sooner or later.”

Yuu shook their head.

Aphid paused at that. “You don’t want to have a weapon?”

Yuu shook their head again.

“Even if it might keep you that much further from death? What have you got against using a nail? You don’t seem to mind that I have one.”

There was no way to explain how it was different. Tackling bugs, distracting them, even hitting them with rocks still didn’t _feel_ the same as a dirtcarver dying at the end of their blade. They didn’t know how to tell her how very much they didn’t want to feel it again.

“Alright,” Aphid said. She nodded once and then returned to the path. “It’s your call, in the end. Let me know if you change your mind, yeah?”

Though they didn’t think they would, Yuu nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

A few more little weavers tailed after the two, but Aphid was able to deal with them alone. On and on the two went, until the passage narrowed, and the ground grew unsteady. Silken webs stretched across the walls and smaller weaver-like bugs skittered along them. Spiked pits opened up when Aphid or Yuu stepped wrong.

They nearly ran into her when Aphid abruptly stopped.

“Whoa.”

Yuu peered around Aphid’s legs.

The passageway ended in a sheer drop into a very large cavern. The ground was far away and bathed in shadow, and the far wall was so distant that it could barely be seen. Webs hung from raised platforms, suspending them in the air like a floating bridge.

The bridges led up to a series of round buildings. From where they stood, it was hard to tell much else about the structures aside from the fact that they too looked to be made of thick strands of ancient silk.

“I heard there was a village down here,” Aphid muttered. “But I didn’t realize…” She took a few steps forward and then jumped, not to the nearest platform, but straight into the open air.

Her cloak was swept aside, and her wings unfolded. Their transparent surfaces gleamed iridescent even in the near nonexistent light and then blurred into a silvery haze when they beat.

Yuu was fairly certain that she was the brightest thing in all of Deepnest.

As Aphid explored from the sky, Yuu attempted to keep up by the floating bridge. They hopped from platform to platform, keeping their gaze on the next landing spot and away from whatever lay below. Not that a fall, even from that height, would really hurt them, but it was so far away that they didn’t even want to consider how far it would set them back should they miss a jump.

The air buzzed, and Aphid appeared to their left. “Need some help?”

Yuu stared.

Aphid looked back up. “I’m going to explore those buildings. Meet me up there, okay?”

She flew back up and Yuu kept jumping.

Their knees gave out when they finally landed on the larger platform that supported one of the round buildings. Everything was beginning to feel heavy again, and their arms shook a bit when they forced themself to stand.

Aphid was nowhere in sight.

The door before them was open.

Yuu crept forward, not trusting the way the silk creaked as they moved. The entire structure swayed a bit.

Inside, the room was dark. There was a stone bench sitting in the center and a group of bugs stood around it. They all stared emptily at the bench, not yet noticing Yuu’s presence.

There was something wrong with the entire thing. Wrong, wrong, wrong, so wrong that Yuu felt sick. Something inside them rolled like it was trying to come out, and they took a step back. Whatever was wrong with those bugs, it felt almost worse than infection.

Yuu was scared, and though they knew it offered no real protection from harm, they clutched their scarf like a lifeline.

Something went _tap, tap, tap,_ behind them, but Yuu was reluctant to turn away from the strange and empty bugs.

_Tap, tap, tap._

Yuu took several steps back and away from the door before looking to the source of the sound.

Aphid stood at the edge of another platform, looking down at the vessel. She raised a hand, gesturing for them to follow.

Yuu was more than willing to leave the empty bugs behind.

“I don’t know what’s going on in there,” Aphid said, her voice low. “But you couldn’t _pay_ me to go in and ask.”

Yuu nodded vigorously.

“The one over here is mostly empty,” Aphid said, leading the way to the building that sat at the other end of the short platform. “It’s about as safe as anywhere else around here. I say we rest here for a bit before moving on.”

Rest.

Yuu wanted to protest, but their limbs and mask felt even heavier than before. They should sit before the urge to stop moving grew too strong at the wrong moment. They should sit and rest.

Inside, there was a single dusty room. Corpses wrapped in silk were piled against a wall, and bits and pieces of various odds and ends were scattered around the floor. A few ancient barrels sat untouched in a corner.

“I’ve stayed in worse places,” Aphid commented.

So had Yuu, though they couldn’t help but wish they were back at the hot spring. It all seemed so long ago now.

Aphid pried open one of the barrels and rummaged around inside while Yuu sat in the corner opposite to the corpses. It was illogical, seeing as the empty husks did not seem to house any corpse creepers and showed no signs of coming to life (it looked like they hadn’t moved since they died), but Yuu didn’t want to be near them. It didn’t make them scared, but the idea of sitting beside the long-dead bugs gave them a bad feeling.

“Not much here,” Aphid said, her voice echoing oddly from the barrel. “Makes sense, though. We’re far from the first bugs to come searching for supplies.” She turned away from the barrel and glanced to Yuu. In her hands, she held a stack of parchment and a few other trinkets.

She joined Yuu in the corner and offered the parchment to them. When they accepted the stack, she also pressed a half-empty bottle of ink and a ragged quill into their hands. “I don’t know how long you intend to follow me, but it would be helpful if we could communicate better.”

Yuu looked down at the parchment. It was very old, the edges torn and chewed by smaller creatures.

“Teaching you proper writing would take too long,” Aphid continued. “That, and I’m not so good at Hallownest’s language myself, but I figured this would be a start.”

Yuu looked at the quill and then the ink. They’d never used either before.

Aphid seemed to realize this too. “Here,” she said. “Like this.” She placed a piece of parchment on the ground between she and Yuu. Then she uncorked the bottle of ink and dipped the point of the quill inside. When it had taken on a suitable amount of ink, she put the point to the page.

The dark lines stood out against the yellowing parchment like void against rock, and as Yuu watched, the lines curved and connected and then looped back around in a very deliberate way.

When Aphid was done, the rough image of a vessel was staring blankly out from the parchment. Its face was round, and its eyes were black blobs of ink that were slowly soaking into the page. It had four horns on its head, shorter ones flanking two longer ones.

“That’s you,” Aphid told them.

That’s Yuu?

“Well, I’m not exactly an artist, but that’s the best I can do.”

Yuu wasn’t really listening. They brought their hands up to their mask, feeling along the smooth edges until they touched the blunt point of the first set of horns. The second set was too long for them to reach, but they could feel it was there.

“You can practice if you want,” Aphid said. “I’m going to sleep for a while.” She shifted back, further into the corner until her back was against the wall, tail curled around long limbs when she lay down.

Yuu looked at the door and pointed.

“We’re as safe here as anywhere else,” Aphid said, her voice soft and heavy. “I didn’t see anything else wandering around the platforms and I think those weird bugs are too fixated on that bench to bother us.”

That was true.

As Aphid dozed off, Yuu picked up the quill and put it to the parchment.

They hadn’t been lying before when they’d said they couldn’t write (More accurately, they couldn’t read, but they didn’t know the difference at the time). Yuu had seen the torn pages of books and the occasional carved traveler’s journal. The markings made no sense to them.

As for drawing, they simply had never tried before, likening it to writing. As it turned out, it was a very different thing.

There was no real purpose in the things they committed to paper. Aphid had wanted to communicate, but aside from the whole ‘shade’ thing, there was very little Yuu wanted to say. Still, they put the quill to the parchment until there was no more space to put things. And when that happened, they set it aside and grabbed another piece.

It felt like hardly a moment had passed when Aphid woke. She sighed and stretched, cursed when her tail banged against the wall. Her mask had shifted with the way she had been lying. Yuu caught a brief glint of turquoise before she adjusted it.

“Oh, wow,” Aphid said when she sat up. She was looking down at the three pages spread out around where Yuu continued to scribble on a fourth. “You, uh, really took to that, huh?” She shuffled over and sat beside the vessel, carefully picking up one of the pages. “May I?”

Yuu nodded absentmindedly. Before them, the lines of ink went round and round in a weaver’s web. Specifically, a web they’d seen another vessel get trapped in. That was how they learned not to get too close to them.

“Is this your family?” Aphid asked, still looking down at the parchment in her hand.

Yuu nodded again. They felt the word wasn’t entirely accurate, but it came close enough. All vessels shared the same mother, the same father, the same origin, the same purpose, and all but one had been locked away in the same place.

“There are so many…”

Not really. The ones Yuu had drawn were a miniscule fraction of the many who had escaped the abyss with them.

“This is the thing I saw when you got run over by a garpede.”

When Yuu looked up, Aphid was gesturing to the small shade they had drawn in the corner. Above it was a broken mask (not theirs. They’d never seen their own before) and then the front half of a garpede (it was too big to draw completely).

Recognizing an opportunity to use the drawings in the way Aphid had intended, Yuu pointed to the broken mask and then the shade.

“Is that what happens when you die?” Aphid asked slowly.

Yuu nodded and then grabbed the next page where they’d drawn the hot spring and a bench and then the safe hollow they’d been in before. When Aphid didn’t seem to understand, they drew a little vessel in each location and pointed from the broken mask, to the shade, and then to the little vessels who were live and whole.

Aphid made a groaning sound. “You’re saying you _don’t_ die?”

Close enough.

“And _that’s_ why you keep throwing yourself at dangerous things. If you get, I dunno, _hurt_ enough, you just go back to wherever you were before. That’s also why I didn’t see you after you’d gotten hit by the garpede.”

Yuu kept nodding. They didn’t like the tone of her voice. They recognized the sound of disappointment and disapproval. Though it did no physical damage, it made something in them hurt.

“What’s with the shadow version of you?” Aphid sighed, gesturing again to the little shade.

There wasn’t a coherent way to explain that didn’t involve a lot more pictures, so Yuu just patted it. She already understood the important bits.

“I see.”

When Aphid didn’t say anything else, Yuu went back to drawing the vessel and the weaver’s web.

“You’re… quite good at this, y’know,” Aphid said, looking over the two pages again. “I thought you said you couldn’t draw.”

Yuu shrugged.

“Wait, is this a _map?_ ” Aphid had picked up the third page, the one Yuu had just finished with when she’d begun to wake. “ _A map of Deepnest?_ ”

More accurately, it was a map of the places in Deepnest that Yuu had been. They’d never thought to keep track of their travel in such a way. Drawing had opened a whole new world to them.

“If we’re here…” Aphid trailed off. She was holding the map very close to her mask, though Yuu felt that their lines were very easy to see. “There should be a way out of Deepnest nearby.”

Yuu stopped drawing. They sat up and pointed at their map. Another way out? One (hopefully) not guarded by mantises?

“The Mantis Village guards the main entrance point.” Aphid gestured to the room with angry mantises doodled all over it. “But there are other ways. I heard there’s a tram that goes east, but you couldn’t _pay_ me to go through the garpedes and dirtcarvers again. I’m pretty sure the trams stopped working years ago anyway. Up here, near the Distant Village.” She tapped the big cavern with the floating houses and then drew an invisible line to an area just east of it, above where they’d been traveling before. “I’ve never been over there, never been west of the Fungal Wastes, but I hear it’s some kind of garden. Sounds nice, right?”

Yuu jumped to their feet and started stuffing the rest of the parchment into their void. Another way out! What were they waiting for?

They reclaimed the map last, though they hesitated at the way Aphid was staring at them.

“What _are_ you?” she asked again, voice colored quiet and confused.

The fact that they were void stuffed into a mask, created to hold a god but then deemed unworthy to, seemed like it would take a long time to explain. Also more parchment and ink than they currently had.

Thankfully, Aphid seemed content to accept their silence on the matter. She handed over the map and got to her feet. “I don’t know about you,” she said. “But I’m sick of this place. Let’s get out of here.”

Though the going was no less difficult, Yuu couldn’t help but think the way back went a lot quicker than before. They followed a broken trail east and then began climbing upward, hopefully toward escape.

Yuu had almost thought the two made it when they found themselves in another large cavern. It was dimly lit by an ancient lamp, lumiflies buzzing around in a globe of glass. A big metal track sat at the far end of the cavern, and led through a massive crack in the stone wall.

Further ahead, there was a metal platform and an old rusted bench.

“This isn’t right,” Aphid muttered, taking in the half-finished construction and husks of those who worked on it before its failure. “This is the Failed Tramway.”

Yuu skipped on ahead, clambering up the metal platform and then taking a seat on the bench. There, they pulled out their map and started filling in the space between the Distant Village and wherever they were now (Failed Tramway).

Aphid came up beside them, peering down to check their work. “Oh, I get it,” she said when they’d finished the main lines and started drawing dead bugs around the tramway. “We went too far east.” She tapped a narrow space between the Distant Village and the Failed Tramway. “The way into the Gardens must be here.” Straightening up, she pointed to the massive hole punched into the wall. “The Tramway never got built to completion, but maybe it’ll reach far enough for us to get there.”

It sounded like a fair plan.

Yuu returned the map to their void and followed as Aphid darted across the cavern. Long legs and flicking tail, she leaped gracefully up to the top of the gap and then jumped through.

The bottom edge of the crevice was nearly too high for Yuu to reach. They had to jump, fingers barely gripping the edge, before hauling themself up onto the narrow space between caverns.

Aphid exclaimed something (it wasn’t in a language Yuu recognized, but it sounded like cursing) and Yuu scrambled to their feet in alarm.

Three flying bugs hovered above Aphid, circling around her while remaining just out of reach of her blade. They took turns releasing dirtcarvers from their bodies, the smaller bugs attacking the moment they were airborne.

Was this where dirtcarvers came from?? What a terrible way to come into being!

Aphid was quickly getting overwhelmed, too busy keeping the dirtcarvers away to deal with the carver hatchers that continued to spit out more.

Yuu jumped off the ledge and ran over. They could try throwing rocks again, but there were too many to distract. They were all crawling and climbing over each other in their mad attempt to get to Aphid. They probably wouldn’t notice anything less than a nail being driven into their shells.

Even knowing this, Yuu dove at the nearest one.

Like before, the two rolled a bit, both knocked to the ground by the momentum. The dirtcarver’s head took the brunt of the fall, striking the rock with a terrible cracking sound.

It was stunned, and Yuu used the chance to get back to Aphid.

“Don’t!” Aphid hissed. She didn’t look away from the carver hatchers, but one hand was splayed in the vessel’s direction.

Yuu ignored it.

As it was, she managed to tear free of the group clawing and biting at her legs. Her own wings unfolded, humming in a lower pitch, counterpoint to the carver hatcher’s higher pitched buzzing.

Aphid’s nail swung in an arc as she chased down the carver hatchers, tracking them through the air and following even as they tried to retreat.

Yuu ran along the ground, keeping ahead of the dirtcarvers that trailed after the midair fight. Was there anything they could do? They had no wings, no weapons, and struggled just to keep up.

One of the carver hatchers fell to Aphid’s nail. Its shell broke apart and orange flew through the air like poison rain.

Aphid hissed as the other hatcher carver spit more dirtcarvers at her (how did it hold so many?). While she managed to dodge any real damage, the onslaught forced her closer to the ground, just above where the dirtcarvers were reaching up with claws and mandibles.

They were too frenzied for Yuu to draw away from Aphid. While they looked like the normal kind that the two had encountered earlier, they seemed more driven, obeying the commands of their makers.

Yuu ran forward again and then jumped up. They used one of the dirtcarvers as a springboard, and the added momentum sent them high enough to grab the tail of one of the hatcher carvers.

What are you _doing???_ ” Aphid demanded.

Yuu thought it was fairly obvious.

Before they could do anything else, the carver hatcher thrashed madly, tail whipping in all directions.

Yuu was thrown clear, the cold stone floor striking hard at their back when they landed.

Aphid was cursing again, but the sound was drowned out by a horde of dirtcarvers diving to where Yuu fell.

Then they were back at the bench in the cavern before.

A quick inspection revealed that they still had their scarf (Yuu hugged it close to their chest for a long moment) and that the map and their other drawings were still within reach, safe in the void.

The sound of Aphid’s struggle against the hatcher carvers was still audible, echoing through the tramway and bouncing off stone walls.

Yuu jumped off the bench and ran back. The floaty, dreamlike feeling of being without their shade had them wobbling with each step, but they managed not to fall over until they reached the bottom edge of the gap.

The hatcher carvers were gone and Aphid was dealing with the remaining dirtcarvers by flying in a wide circle and then swooping down and picking them off when the horde thinned.

Yuu’s shade hovered nearby, silent and still save for the void shapes that flickered around its being.

Though she didn’t seem to notice Yuu’s presence yet, Aphid continued to lead the dirtcarvers away, her nail striking them down on every other beat of her wings.

Yuu took the opportunity to wrestle their shade. They succeeded in returning it to their being around the same time that Aphid drove her nail into the last dirtcarver.

She was breathing hard when she returned to where Yuu stood. “Are you alright?” Aphid asked.

She wanted to know if they were unharmed.

Yuu nodded. With their shade returned and no other damage taken, they were back to full health.

“Where did shadow-you go?”

Yuu gestured to themself.

Aphid hummed and sat down. She was still breathing hard, small scratches running down her legs. Orange was splashed across her shell and cloak.

Yuu patted the ground to get her attention. When they had it, they pointed at her.

“Am _I_ okay?” Aphid asked.

A nod.

“I’m fine.” Her voice took on an edge that, though different, made Yuu again think of disappointment and disapproval. “So, this is what you meant by saying you don’t die.”

Another nod, though Yuu looked down at their hands. Tiny fingers gripped the fabric of their scarf and twisted it around.

“I guess I get it,” Aphid went on, her voice gentler. “I’ve done stupid and reckless things to protect people. And even though I don’t understand how anything about you works, I get that you can do things I can’t. Still. Even if you can come back, I don’t like seeing _you_ get hurt either.”

Yuu continued to grip their scarf until their fingers went numb. What were they supposed to do about that? They couldn’t say anything, and they didn’t even know what they’d say if they could. Their entire chest ached in a way that made them want to _do_ something, and the longer they stayed still, the more the feeling burned up in their shell. Their throat felt tight despite their scarf hanging loose on their shoulders.

They pulled out the quill and a piece of parchment and proceeded to draw many things. Aphid, her mask splashed with orange (black, but that was the only color they had) and her nail impaling a dirtcarver; the hatcher carvers as they hovered above the fight; their own shade watching everything unfold. They drew themself, swarmed by dirtcarvers, and though it didn’t happen that way, they drew Aphid saving them.

Yuu had been the one to come between Aphid and the carver hatcher. Why did it feel like the other way around again? As if she’d saved them from the mantises all over again?

“Where did you come from?” Aphid said. It sounded more like she was talking to herself than Yuu.

They didn’t have the time to answer anyhow.

Yuu kept drawing until the burning feeling faded. Little doodles of Aphids and vessels covered the page, interspersed with more meaningless scribbles when it suddenly felt like the world was coming down on their head. They drew some more dead dirtcarvers too because it made them feel better. Yuu didn’t want to feel them die, but that didn’t stop a dead dirtcarver being far safer than a live one.

“The Failed Tramway is a dead end,” Aphid said. She sounded better, no longer panting and voice not so rough. “We’ll have to go back around and see if there’s another path we missed. The way to the Gardens goes right between the Village and the Tramway. I guess the original plan was to use the tram to connect the east and west sides of the kingdom, but progress stopped at Deepnest.”

Yuu didn’t have to imagine why.

“Anyway.” Aphid got to her feet and brushed dust from her cloak. “Are you alright to keep moving?”

Yuu put their quill and parchment away.

“I’ll have to find you more paper,” Aphid mused. She led the way back to the cavern with the bench. “I didn’t expect you to be such an enthusiastic artist.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so this wip is actually about 35k words long. I was going to space out posts to give me time to edit and write more, but I got really excited when I realized people were actually reading it, so here's another chapter.

The two backtracked again, retracing their steps until they found the way up. The climb was less a climb and more of a desperate scramble from one ledge to another. Or, at least, that’s how it was for Yuu. Aphid was able to fly in some spots, but even when she couldn’t, she was tall enough that reaching the next ledge was just a matter of stepping up.

The last stretch was covered in green. Plants clung to the wall, broad leaves growing thick and strong despite the lack of light. Their scent made the air humid in a way that living things tended to do, and everything felt just a bit warmer.

Above, a faint light shone down.

“There!” Aphid gasped. Her wings buzzed for a moment before she realized there was no room to fly. She jumped up to the next ledge, climbing with much more energy than before.

Yuu did their best to keep up, but they wound up falling behind. With any luck, they would just meet Aphid at the top.

She stepped into the light long before they did. Aphid hopped up onto the edge, body obscured by the bright. Then there was a yelp and a curse and a command to “stay back!”. Aphid’s tail disappeared through the gap and the sound of combat soon followed.

Yuu paused, several platforms down.

A boomerang flew down through the beam of light and imbedded itself into the wall.

Yuu climbed faster.

They reached the platform just below the surface. Before they could pull themself up, another boomerang flew through the air and nearly decapitated them. Yuu ducked around it and scrambled up in time to see Aphid tear the wings off a hissing and thrashing mantis petra.

Her nail had been knocked from her hand. Yuu knelt to pick it up before racing to join her. Tossing it to her would be a simple act, but something stayed their hand. They knew what she would do with it, and the thought made something in them sink.

The mantis was wingless and struggling more to get away than it was to attack. It was beaten, and even in its infected state, it knew it. Couldn’t they let it go?

Their deliberation turned out to be pointless. Aphid was deadly even when unarmed, her hands gripping the mantis petra’s neck and wrenching it sideways until the shell cracked.

Orange infection burst from the wound and splashed onto the ground, standing out bright against the rich green.

Yuu winced at the sight.

“Mantises that give into the infection are banished,” Aphid panted. “No one talked about where they went, and I never asked. Now I kinda wish I did.” She withdrew her nail and rocked back onto her heels. “Welcome to the Queen’s Gardens.” She shoved the body aside and wiped some of the gore from her hands.

Yuu surrendered her nail, choosing to focus on the world around them rather than the infected mess at her feet.

As it turned out, the world around them was much prettier.

Everything was so green! Plants grew taller than their head, and a soft light filtered in from above. There was a breeze. The ground beneath Yuu’s feet was soft, a thick layer of moss covering the stone.

Did the rest of Hallownest look like this? Yuu hoped so.

As if in a trance, they sat down and pulled out their quill and a blank piece of parchment. On it, they drew every plant they could see. The plants along the wall grew close together, tiny leaves bunching in clumps and hiding the stone entirely. Little flowers grew along the path, adding splashes of blue and purple and white to the already colorful landscape. Strangely shaped plants that were bigger than Yuu grew a few paces away, bulbous bases planted firmly in the soft ground and curved petals pointing up toward the light. Vines hung down and swayed slightly.

Everything looked so alive.

“You look like you’ve never seen a plant before,” Aphid said. Her voice was brighter than Yuu was used to hearing it.

Yuu felt brighter too. They nodded and kept drawing.

“Wait, you truly haven’t?” Aphid asked. “You’ve spent your entire life down in Deepnest?”

Yuu shook their head. While they spent a large amount of time in Deepnest, they could still remember the Abyss.

“Where did – actually, never mind.” Aphid stood and looked to where a clear path made a trail that lead deeper into the green and further away from the shadows of Deepnest. “If the traitors patrol this far, we should be on guard.”

Yuu returned their drawing materials to their void.

Walking through the Queen’s gardens almost didn’t feel real. Everything was so different from what they were used to. The ground remained soft, and plants sprouted from every available space, horizontal and otherwise. Life seemed to burst from every corner, and so far, not all of it tried to attack on sight.

Small flying bugs, maskflies, flitted through the green. They paid no mind to the travelers that passed through their territories. Aside from watching them from afar, Yuu wouldn’t have tried to interact. If a bug wasn’t actively trying to kill the vessel, Yuu found no reason to test fate.

Aphid watched the small flitting things with interest. Her expression was covered by her mask, but her entire body turned as she tracked the movement of a maskfly. “Are you hungry?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the little flying bug.

Yuu shook their head. While they could absorb certain substances, vessels didn’t really need to eat. They could, but Yuu didn’t like the idea of eating another bug, especially if it was infected.

“Really?” Aphid still wasn’t looking at them. “Well, I’m starving. I’ll be right back.”

Though they didn’t like the sound of Aphid’s nail striking through bugs who posed no threat to them, Yuu took a seat and went back to the drawing they’d started before. Here, there were even more plants, and their quill all but flew over the page in Yuu’s attempt to depict them.

Aphid darted in and out and around the plant life as she chased down her prey. One maskfly had already fallen to her nail. A moment later, a second joined the first.

“It would be great if we could find somewhere to start a fire or something,” Aphid mused. Once on the ground, she inspected her catch, carefully removing the heads and wings. “Not that I’m a great cook, but I’d feel better if I could burn some of the infection out of these.”

Yuu felt like the infection didn’t spread that way, but they understood the sentiment.

“C’mon,” Aphid said even as she tore small pieces off of one of the maskflies. “I can walk and eat.”

So much for finishing their picture.

Yuu returned their drawing materials to their void and got to their feet again. It surprised them, how very much they didn’t want to move on just yet. There wasn’t any logical reason, they just wanted to finish drawing.

Oh well.

While they deliberated, Aphid wandered on ahead. She looked quite at home, walking slowly along the light-dappled path, and Yuu again wondered where she came from. She certainly wasn’t native to Hallownest. Had she traveled far to get there? Did she see the kingdom fall? If so, why didn’t she leave?

It didn’t matter. Yuu wound up running to catch up.

While the Queen’s Gardens were a step up (literally) from Deepnest, Yuu knew they hadn’t reached wherever they were supposed to go. Wherever the terrible light was, it must be much further from the void than this.

Yuu doubted that their and Aphid’s paths would lead to the same place (had she even mentioned an intended destination?), but as the two followed various broken paths further into the Gardens, she seemed to be leading them further up.

As the two walked, Aphid slowly ate her catch, tearing small pieces of maskfly off and then slipping them beneath her mask.

Yuu wondered where she was intending to go. Maybe back to wherever she came from. Maybe far away from Hallownest.

When their paths inevitably diverged, would Yuu see her again?

The plants were overgrown, and the path was barely traversable as it was, but then thick vines began overtaking whatever was left of the stone. Red thorns stood out against the green.

“I can see why the lords banished traitors _here_ ,” Aphid muttered. Finished with her food, her nail was back in her hand. She used it to hack at a thorny vine that partially blocked the way forward.

Yuu didn’t know which lords she referred to, but they agreed. Though much prettier, the Gardens were proving to be nearly as dangerous to traverse as Deepnest. The further the two traveled, the more the thorns took over, even as they passed through the ruins of what must have been great halls and rooms. Everywhere they went, green pressed through the cracks.

Eventually, they came to a literal sea of twisting vines and bright red thorns. A few metal platforms made a tentative path upward, but Yuu really didn’t like the look of those. The metal was made up of thin pieces twisted into ornate shapes and patterns, and they were attached to walls and pillars in a way that looked far from stable. Even the ancient platforms in the Distant Village looked safer.

Maybe it was because there hadn’t been an ocean of sharp thorns below those.

“I guess this place used to be really nice,” Aphid commented. She shifted her cloak aside and spread her wings. Their iridescence caught the light and reflected a million different colors at once. Then, in a flash, the air was filled with their soft hum.

Yuu watched as Aphid went on ahead. They wanted wings. Wings would make getting around dangerous ground much easier. Unfortunately, they had no wings, they just had two very little legs and a bunch of unsafe platforms ahead of them.

The platforms weren’t very far from the ground, so jumping across wasn’t too terribly difficult. Yuu’s scarf made things a bit trickier, and after nearly tripping on in, Yuu considered temporarily storing it in their void.

They really didn’t want to, though, so they paused in their jumping to loop the end of their scarf around their shoulders again so it didn’t trail so badly.

There was a clicking sound, and suddenly the ground gave way beneath their feet.

Yuu didn’t even have time to think about what had happened. Thorns and vines were rushing to meet them as they fell.

Before they suffered a very unfortunate setback (the last safe place was in the Failed Tramway) one flailing hand was caught.

Aphid swooped down so the momentum didn’t tear their arm from their body. For a moment, Yuu’s feet dangled hardly an antenna’s width from the deadly brambles. Then they were swung up and around. Everything moved so fast, the world blurring into a mix of motion and the sound of Aphid’s wings and rushing air.

They were in her arms and she held them close as she headed for a clear spot up ahead.

Yuu buried their face in their scarf and held tight to Aphid’s cloak.

When Aphid finally set them down, Yuu felt like they were still flying. Their legs wobbled and they had to sit before they fell over.

“Sorry,” Aphid muttered. “I didn’t think the damn platforms…” She sighed and looked down at Yuu. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to just grab you.”

They gave a shaky nod. They were undamaged, but the world still felt like it was spinning. They weren’t scared, but the tense and jittery feeling in their chest was very close.

Yuu had never flown before. They’d never been held before either.

It was strange, being touched without being hurt. Yuu knew it was possible in theory, but vessels were not made with kind touch in mind, and everything in Deepnest wanted to kill anything that wasn’t of Deepnest (and a few things that were).

“This place is almost as bad as Deepnest,” Aphid continued. The sound of disapproval was back in her voice. Yuu was glad to hear it not aimed at them. “No, this place might be worse. The dirtcarvers and weavers were a pain, but here, we have the mantis traitors to worry about.”

Oh right. Yuu had nearly forgotten about them.

“If you’re good to walk, we should get going again. If the mantis traitors are here, we’ll have to continue further up to Greenpath, and we can’t cross the Gardens without stopping to rest at least once. I want to find a safe place before anything else finds _us_.”

Yuu fervently agreed. If they got broken, they really didn’t want to be sent all the way back to Deepnest. Despite the way their legs still shook, they got to their feet.

They really weren’t damaged, and they were decisively not scared. Why did they still feel fragile, almost as if they’d lost their shade? Yuu hugged their scarf tight to their chest, feeling like they were trying to physically hold themself together before they shattered.

“I’ve been to the most eastern part of Greenpath a couple times before the infection fully set in,” Aphid said. There was a relatively clear path that ran through a glass encased hall. She was staring very intently at it and was not looking at Yuu. “But the connection to the Gardens isn’t on that side. I wish we could cut through the Fungal Wastes but I’m pretty sure that would take even longer, and I’m not entirely sure where that connection point is either.”

Yuu had no idea either, so they just followed.

There were other places that were completely impassable due to thorny vines, but instead of trying to cut through, Aphid led them to go around.

Yuu approved of the decision.

That is, until they realized the two had gone in a very big circle. Every thornless path seemed to lead back to the same place.

Aphid hissed and her wings buzzed for a moment. Then she looked up to where more maskflies perched on a nearby archway.

“I’m going to scout ahead,” she said. She sounded angry. Yuu hoped it wasn’t at them. “Let’s see if I can find a way out of these gods forsaken brambles.”

Aphid took off at a standstill and then flew over another sea of thorns (or, Yuu was pretty sure is was a different thorny area. They all looked the same). She flew around the pillars and platforms, hovering in place for a few moments before moving on and repeating the process. Slowly this went on until she began to loop back.

Yuu sat and waited. They didn’t think she would be gone long enough for them to start drawing again, so they took the time to pick the bits of dirt and rock out of their scarf. They tried hard to keep the end from dragging, but the frayed edge still managed to pick up some debris.

Before, in that first thorny area, Aphid had carried them, had held them. Yuu hadn’t considered it before (Aphid gained nothing from the action, so no point in suggesting it), but it had been very convenient.

Despite being surrounded by thorns, for a brief moment, they’d felt safe. Now back on the ground, it was like all the threats of Deepnest and the Gardens were swarming back, though there was no reason why it felt like they’d been warded off in the first place.

Then again, it had also felt very strange. Perhaps that was why Aphid was avoiding a repeat experience.

Above, she flew in a slowly widening circle. When her circuit became as wide as it could be without her hitting something, Aphid landed on an archway, one hand on her hip and one foot tapping restlessly at the stone. She must not have found a way out of the thorns.

Yuu peered at the mess of vines before them. There were very small gaps between. Aphid was too big to consider it, but maybe Yuu could climb through? But what would be the point? They couldn’t take Aphid with them.

Then again, it shouldn’t matter. Their end purpose didn’t involve her anyway.

Above, Aphid took to the sky again. She was heading back, but it didn’t seem to be in victory.

Maybe they needed to backtrack further. Yuu intended to suggest it (they hadn’t decided on how yet) when Aphid landed, but then she was shot out of the sky.

She hit the ground with a dull thud, landing on the other side of the clear space. She was spitting and cursing even as she rolled along the rock, coming perilously close to falling into the thorns. A moment later, she was standing again, mask tilted skyward.

Yuu leaped to their feet.

A group of mantis petras appeared, flying over the twisted plant life. One must have thrown a boomerang. Its friends prepared two more.

Aphid deflected the second one, drawing her nail in time to catch the strike with her own blade. She dodged the third, dust flying up when it lodged into the ground by her feet.

Yuu ran over, though there wasn’t much they could do. The petras hovered far above their head, and Aphid took off to meet them.

“For once, will you _stay back_?” Aphid hissed. She darted around another boomerang and charged one of the petras. They were small and quick, but despite being quite a bit larger, Aphid was just as agile. Her blade sliced through its wing, and the petra began to spiral. It landed somewhere in the thorns.

Yuu chased after her as the fight continued.

The remaining two mantis petras tried to retreat, but Aphid caught one before it could dart out of reach. The two spun through the air, Aphid’s nail stopped by the petra’s claws. Wings flashed bright and silvery and the air was filled with the sound of buzzing.

Aphid got the upper hand, using her superior size and weight to force the petra out of the sky. She drove the smaller bug toward the thorns even as it thrashed and buzzed and lashed out with claws.

Yuu wasn’t close enough to see Aphid’s victory, but they had a basic understanding of how it went down.

She still looked mad when she returned.

“The other one got away?” she panted, mask tilted skyward as she searched.

Yuu nodded. Then Aphid looked down at them, and they nodded again so she could see.

Aphid proceeded to mutter a jumbled string of words that Yuu didn’t understand. They assumed they were curses.

“We need to get out of here,” Aphid said once she got her breath back. “The petras will come back, and next time, there will be even more.”

That… wasn’t good.

Yuu pointed back the way the two had come, suggesting they go back until they find a way around.

Aphid wasn’t looking. She was staring in the direction she’d flown while scouting. “There’s another hall over there, but it’s on the other side of the thorns and I didn’t see a way to walk around. You can either try the platforms again, or I can carry you across.”

Seeing as they couldn’t even see which platforms she was referring to (unless she meant the ones too far away to jump to from there), Yuu was in favor of the second option. They briefly flapped their arms up and down like wings and then pointed in the direction Aphid had indicated.

“Good. It’ll be a lot quicker that way,” Aphid said. She knelt to Yuu’s level and looked at them, arms open.

Yuu wasn’t sure what she wanted them to do.

“Okay… You want me to fly you, right? Or did I completely misread that?”

Yuu nodded and flapped their arms again.

“Alright, come here then.”

Still not entirely sure, Yuu took a few steps forward.

Aphid sighed. “I can’t tell if you’re stalling or just really confused, but we really don’t have time for this.”

She grabbed Yuu under the arms, adjusted them so she had one arm under their legs and the other across their back (like last time, though with less fear of falling) and then stood. Unlike before, Aphid took a running start this time, racing across the clearing before throwing herself (and Yuu) into the air.

The world shifted, and Yuu almost felt like they were falling. However, Aphid’s hold on them was secure, her hands gentle where they pressed the vessel close.

When they felt a bit less like their shade was dropping out of their shell, Yuu looked down. It was an odd thing, peering over Aphid’s shoulder and watching the ground become further and further away. Once airborne, the thorns looked a little less intimidating.

That is, until Yuu saw how the mantis petras had landed. But never mind that.

They twisted around, trying to see where Aphid was taking them. Ahead, the thorns stretched on and on until the cavern wall closed in. Even then, the vines just climbed upwards, creating a distant wall of green. A few crumbling ruins or overtaken halls stood out against the choking plant life.

“There,” Aphid said, and one hand let go of Yuu long enough to briefly point to a small area the thorns didn’t cover. “I think there’s a hall there, and it’ll lead to another section of the Gardens. Hopefully, it’ll be further away from the mantis traitors.”

Yuu nodded. With Aphid’s hold on them less certain, their grip tightened on her cloak.

“I’m not gonna drop you,” Aphid told them. “You’re small and light, not hard to carry at all.”

That made them feel a bit better.

Finally, Aphid landed. She bent to set Yuu down on solid ground and, like before, they had to sit a moment so they didn’t tip over. While they enjoyed the experience, Yuu was pretty sure vessels weren’t made to fly for a reason.

“Come on,” Aphid said after letting them rest a moment. “We’re not safe yet, not even close. We should keep moving.”

Yuu agreed, but they were still reluctant to get up.

The hall the two travelers found themselves in was dark. On the other side of glass walls, leaves and vines grew so close together that very little light passed through. That which did, was faint and distinctly green, dappling the cracked floors.

There were more maskflies, and Aphid took off after them. She managed to grab one out of the air before the flock could escape.

“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” she asked, looking to where Yuu was running to catch up.

Yuu nodded. They did wonder what it was like, though. Maybe they’d accept if she offered something that wasn’t a dead bug.

“It looks like there’s a room up ahead,” Aphid said as she tore the mask and wings from her catch. “We shouldn’t stay too long, but it might make a good place to rest a bit.”

The room turned out to be more of a fancy end of the hall. Not as many plants grew outside of it, and the glass was shattered along one side, so it wasn’t a dead end, but it didn’t exactly give Yuu the impression of safety.

They really wanted to find another bench. Or even better, another hot spring. Maybe a hot spring _with_ a bench? Or was it too much to ask for both?

Aphid flopped down onto a mass of moss. Once sitting, Yuu realized how haggard she looked. Her head was low as she munched on her maskfly, and her hands moved slow. Her wings were spread awkwardly beneath her cloak, stretching as if they hurt.

Between the save earlier and then the second flight over the thorns, it was the most Yuu had seen Aphid fly before. They didn’t know much about flying bugs (other than that they’re hard for a vessel to fight), but was that a lot of flying in one sitting?

Yuu thought Aphid looked like she had all of Hallownest weighing down on her shoulders.

As Aphid rested and finished her meal, Yuu pulled out their quill and a fresh piece of parchment. They hoped they could get more soon. As far as usefulness went, the ability to make a map was invaluable, but Yuu also just wanted to draw more meaningless things too.

Across the page, a rough map of the Queen’s Gardens took shape. When that was complete, Yuu went back to drawing plants; there were a few more varieties clustered around the glass.

“You’re not used to all the green, huh?” Aphid said.

Yuu looked up to her. They shook their head.

“You _really_ have only been in Deepnest?”

They shook their head again.

Aphid hummed and leaned back against the thick vines that crawled up the wall. “Ah, that’s right. Where _do_ you come from? Can you even tell me?”

Yuu’s hand paused over the page in their lap. They thought of the abyss. The dark and cold and solitude amid a crowd didn’t bother them. The door closing above, all hope of redemption and escape being sealed away with the rest of the vessels had a heavier impact, coloring the space in shades of silent disappointment and regret. Recalling the feeling in such detail made Yuu shiver, almost as if they’d actually returned.

“You don’t gotta tell me,” Aphid continued. “I just wonder. I come from far away. I’ve seen a lot of things, but you’re the most interesting by far. What kind of place produces bugs like you?”

Yuu looked down at the parchment before them. Below their plant drawings, they drew the abyss: darkness surrounded a jumbled floor of masks. They didn’t think it was a very good depiction of their home. A drawing had no way to express the emptiness that the closing door had stained the place with.

They held up the drawing to show Aphid.

“That’s where you’re from?” she asked.

A nod.

“I see.” Aphid was silent for a long while. Then “The place I’m from is kinda like this.” She waved a hand, gesturing to the surrounding Gardens. “There are plants all over, but also water. Even the air feels full of it, and everything is damp and sticky. Actually, I guess it’s more like Greenpath, except for the acid.”

Did Greenpath have acid? Or did she mean her home?

“It’s not much of a kingdom,” Aphid continued. “Dragonflies are simple bugs, but there was a lot of fighting when I left. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if there’s anything left of my old territory.”

Yuu wondered what such a place might be like. Was there a kingdom made entirely of bugs like Aphid? She said there had been fighting when she left. Was that why she came to Hallownest?

And what a time to do so. Did she arrive before the infection set in? Or did she arrive to find a dead kingdom?

Though they’d never been outside of Deepnest before, Yuu knew of the state of the kingdom. They felt that Deepnest was a good way to prepare for the rest of the kingdom (they figured it couldn’t possibly look _worse_ ), and the Queen’s Gardens were beautiful in comparison. What did Aphid think of Hallownest? How did it compare to the other places she’d been?

Another moment passed, and Yuu became far too aware that they weren’t making progress. Aphid seemed to be dozing off, apparently worn out from all the flying and fighting, but Yuu could still move. They should keep going whether Aphid could keep up or not. Their purpose revolved around them reaching the Radiance. Whether Aphid accompanied them or not was irrelevant.

Yuu poured their restless energy into drawing. More plants took over the page, along with some doodles of vessels and Aphids and mantis petras impaled on thorns. It occurred to them that eventually, they’d also need more ink and a new quill. Now that they discovered it, they didn’t want to give up drawing.

That reminded them that they should probably show Aphid what they’d been working on.

She must have fallen asleep; Aphid didn’t stir when Yuu went over to show her the new map.

In an attempt to get her attention, Yuu reached out and tugged at the hem of her cloak. When they still received no response, they hopped up onto her knee, intending to tap at her mask. However, they were distracted by the charm pinned to her cloak. It was simple and black, flanked by two gold mantis claws and then crossed with a thin cord.

Yuu leaned in closer to get a better look, but then lost balance, mask crashing into Aphid’s chest.

There was a flash of movement, and suddenly, the vessel was airborne. The world spun around, and the next thing Yuu knew, the cold ground was against their back and the point of a nail was against their chest.

Aphid leaped back a moment later, her nail falling from her hand and clattering to the floor. “Oh gods!” she gasped, taking another step back.

Yuu sat up. They dropped their map. It was lying a few paces away, and they found themself staring at it and not moving to pick it up.

What just happened?

“Are you okay?” Aphid asked. She was breathing hard, as if she’d just flown to Deepnest and back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

Her voice was suddenly drowned out by the buzzing of wings.

Aphid swore and jumped to her feet. “They found us!”


	6. Chapter 6

Yuu felt like their body was moving for them, and they were in motion before they realized. Their map was back in their hand, the ground flying beneath their feet as they ran, following Aphid after she dove through the broken window and then took off running down the overgrown path beyond.

The buzzing grew louder but was also accompanied by the sound of larger bugs crashing through the thorny brambles.

As Aphid had said before, the petras brought reinforcements.

Speaking of Aphid, Yuu was beginning to lose her. She was far faster, and her legs were longer than Yuu was tall. Before long, all Yuu could see of her was the bright turquoise of her tail before it flickered out of view.

She was hissing curses in two different languages when Yuu caught up.

“Vines!” she spat, pacing before another sea of thorny brambles.

They crawled the walls and twisted around ancient pillars and metal poles. Platforms created a tentative path through the deadly plants, but they were the same kind that dumped Yuu into the thorns before, and they’d almost rather face the mantises.

A boomerang whistled through the air and lodged into the ground by Yuu’s feet.

“Can you trust me again?” Aphid said. She held out her hand to the vessel.

The sound of mantises, both flying and running, grew closer.

Yuu grabbed Aphid’s hand and held on for dear life.

She held them close and took off. Unlike the areas before, the thorns grew all around, and the ceiling hung low. Aphid’s wings were just barely short enough to not be shredded on every beat.

Yuu twisted in her arms and looked back over her shoulder.

“Vines!” she hissed again and again, darting around the platforms and the poles that held them up. The swooping motions brought her closer to the spiky walls and floor, forcing her to rise again, until the horns of her mask scraped against the stone ceiling.

Behind them, more boomerangs flew through the air and broke upon the thorns. The running mantises (they were _huge_ , oh wyrm…) were forced to stop, but the petras continued to chase the two deeper into the tangle of brambles.

Yuu ducked their head against Aphid’s shoulder, face buried in her cloak. Wind whipped all around them, and the only sound they could hear was the droning of wings, both Aphid’s and the pursuing petras’.

The tunnel narrowed, thorns like nails stabbing through the green. Aphid shot through the gaps, wings folded to fit and then unfurling in time to catch her before she and Yuu crashed into the ground.

Being smaller than she was, the petras kept pace even when the gaps between vines narrowed to the point that the thorns snagged on Aphid’s cloak when she passed through.

“Vines!” Aphid hissed again. Her body jerked to the side when a boomerang cut through close enough graze her shell. “Stupid thorns, stupid vines… why thorns? Thorns, thorns, thorns!”

She was slowing down. Her wings hummed sporadically, and when they stuttered, Yuu caught a glimpse of how torn and ragged the tips had become. Aphid’s breath came more as a wheeze as she dove beneath a rickety platform and then around a boulder with thorny vines growing through the cracks.

The petras were closing in, and more boomerangs hissed through the air.

One struck Aphid’s back between her wings.

Her wings faltered, and for a moment, she and Yuu fell straight down toward the thorns.

She caught herself before she crashed, but the effect was felt. Aphid was at a disadvantage before; she certainly wasn’t going to outfly the petras while injured.

The thorny tunnel seemed endless, and only grew harder to traverse the further they went.

“I’m gonna drop you on one of those platforms,” Aphid muttered. She was so out of breath, Yuu could hardly hear her despite how close they were. “They’ll lead outta here eventually. I’ll give you as much time as I can.”

Yuu shook their head hard. No, she was not going to do that.

But what else could be done? Yuu could jump out at their attackers, but there was no guarantee they’d land or even slow them down.

Before they could look any further, Aphid gripped them around the middle and pulled them away from her. They could see the platform she was intending to place them on; it stood at the base of a much narrower tunnel, one that Aphid couldn’t fly through even if healthy.

Below, the thorns opened up into what looked like a hollow. The gap was small, but the ground was clear.

Aphid swung Yuu forward, most likely to toss them at the platform.

At the last second, Yuu gripped her wrists tight and threw their weight down toward the gap. Normally, their weight was hardly of any consequence to Aphid. As it was, she was dragged down with them, yelping as she and Yuu crashed through the brambles.

Aphid protected them at the last second, pulling them close so she was the first to hit the ground. She struck the rock hard and rolled with the impact. When the motion stopped, Aphid did not get up.

Bits of leaves and thorns fell around them, scattering across the stone floor. Light filtered in from the gap above, illuminating a sharp-looking stone that sat in the center of the hollow (so close to where Aphid had fallen. If she’d landed on it…)

Yuu struggled out of her hold and looked up to the gap the two had fallen through. It was a long way, but they could make out the shape of the petras. The group hovered around the break in the thorns, but they did not follow. A few moments later, they were gone.

Though they hadn’t been the one flying, Yuu’s legs suddenly refused to hold them, and they sat down heavily on the stone beside Aphid. A cold rush ran through them, like the scared was draining out of them now that the mantis petras were gone. It felt like their energy drained with it, and Yuu found it hard to move.

Where were they? And why didn’t the mantises follow?

The hollow was small and surrounded by thorns on all sides. There seemed to be a narrow path that lead back into a larger cavern, but it was hard to see from where Yuu sat.

Beside them, Aphid was still. Her already ragged cloak had even more holes in it, and her wings were spread at an awkward angle, body curled around her center where she’d held Yuu. Her mask was cracked and lay crooked. Yuu could almost see her face.

She looked small, lying like that.

Something hurt in Yuu’s chest, and they took a moment to check for damage. Nothing was injured (which was good, since they had no soul to heal with), but the pain remained.

Slowly, Yuu’s energy returned, and they got to their feet. They looked at the strange stone that sat in the center of the hollow. They couldn’t read the carvings, but there was a sense of importance to the area.

With nothing else left to investigate or explore, Yuu headed for the tunnel that led into a larger cavern. The path broke there, and thorns pushed through the gaps between the stone. Cool air flowed from the end of the narrow passageway.

They should keep going. The fall hadn’t set them back too far, and they could make up the lost altitude and then keep going. Greenpath was next, right?

Yuu glanced back to where Aphid lay. She still wasn’t moving.

The hurt feeling grew stronger, settling heavily somewhere in Yuu’s body and preventing them from moving forward.

The logic was sound: Aphid had been incredibly helpful to them, flying them through the thorns. Waiting until she healed would take time but would raise their chances of getting through the rest of the Gardens and then Greenpath unharmed.

Plus, as they went back to her, the hurt lessened just a bit.

It came back as soon as Yuu returned to Aphid’s side. She was breathing, but it came out shallow and faint. Her shell was marked with cuts and scratches, some deep enough to bleed. The fragile membrane of her wings were torn at the tips.

What could Yuu do to speed up the healing process? They knew how to heal their own body using soul, but that wouldn’t work on another bug. The hot spring came to mind, but there was no way for Yuu to take Aphid there, and it would take too long for them to go and take water from the spring (plus they had no idea if it retained its healing properties away from the source).

What was a vessel to do?

For a while, they just stood there, their wondering turning into a haze. Yuu felt sick and hurt and bad all over, as if they’d been the one to crash land onto the hard stone floor.

Oh! Perhaps that was something they could do.

Moss and another clumpy plant grew along the edges of the rock. Yuu grabbed handfuls of both, pulling carefully so they didn’t pick up any of the pointier roots and gravel. They pulled until they had an armful of spongey plant material, and then trotted back to Aphid.

She lay exactly how she fell, limbs at awkward angles and her wings splayed in a way that didn’t look natural. Yuu thought of how she’d slept back at the Distant Village. She must’ve felt better like that, right?

The memory of what happened the last time Yuu woke her surfaced to their mind. She’d attacked them, but then stopped a moment later. Yuu still wasn’t sure what to make of it. They didn’t want it to happen again, but quickly decided that helping Aphid heal outweighed their reluctance.

Scared. Yuu was scared but wasn’t sure why. They didn’t hear any mantises, or any other hostile bugs, but they still felt the urge to run. Or, maybe not run, but to move very fast. Their feet tapped, almost running in place as they stood. Their hands shook when they set the plant pieces down.

Yuu stepped close and carefully picked up Aphid’s hand and moved it from where it had folded against her chest. When she didn’t wake, they went to move the other, setting both to lie in a more natural position. Her legs were in a similar state, so Yuu gently pushed them back until she wasn’t curled up so tightly.

Aphid still didn’t wake, but Yuu thought she looked a bit more peaceful. At the very least, she looked a little less like she’d fallen through layers of thorns just to crash into the rock below.

Next, Yuu moved to her wings. They didn’t know much about wings or how they moved. The membranes looked so delicate, transparent, and iridescent despite the way the edges had torn. Aphid’s cloak had gotten tangled around the lower pair and held them away from her body. The upper set lay against the lower, propped up too high by the knotted fabric.

Untangling wings from cloak would be a lot easier if said cloak was not still pinned to Aphid’s body by the charm at her collar.

Yuu sat close and stared at it. It was pretty in its simplicity, the gold mantis claws shining bright against the black base.

Charms held a power all their own, and while Yuu understood their very basic functions, they didn’t know exactly where that power came from or what that particular charm did. They did know that pinning and unpinning charms was an action that needed to be done very carefully, preferably by the one wearing them.

Yuu’s hands shook slightly as they inched forward, reaching toward the charm. Breaking it scared them. Dropping it scared them. Unleashing whatever terrible power was held within the charm scared them.

They unpinned the charm, and it fell harmlessly into their palm. As soon as the cool weight settled in their hand, Yuu stumbled back and clutched it close before they could drop it. They weren’t sure what else to do with it and didn’t like the idea of just setting it in the grass, so they tucked it away into their void. When Aphid woke, they would return it to her.

Now free, her cloak unwound from her wings with little resistance.

The boomerang had struck Aphid’s back at the space between her wings. A deep cut sliced through her shell, and blood dripped from the edge. A shallower cut struck closer to her shoulder. Was that the one that shot her down earlier?

Yuu didn’t know what to do about that.

They adjusted her wings back to the way she normally held them, gently nudging the thin membranes until they lay flat against her back.

Aphid had bled before, back when she and Yuu fought the dircarvers. She’d tied her scarf around the wound. Yuu assumed it would help it hold her shell together, or at least keep the wound away from the elements.

When Yuu was injured, healing didn’t usually cross their mind. They typically held no soul and if they were injured enough for void to leak through, they didn’t tend to survive long enough to worry about fixing the damage another way.

Yuu wrapped what was left of Aphid’s cloak around her middle so the fabric covered the wounds twice. They tied it as tight as they dared and hoped it helped.

After careful consideration, Yuu also unhooked her belt and set it a few paces away, along with her nail. Part of them thought she might poke herself with it on accident. Part of them simply didn’t want her to point it at them if she startled awake again.

With nothing else left to adjust, Yuu retrieved the moss they’d collected and then went around, tucking the pieces under Aphid’s body until she was no longer lying on just the cold stone. It took a few more trips to gather more moss, but eventually, the task was complete. The restless energy still hadn’t left them, so Yuu then got up and repeated the process, adding more moss and soft leaves until their fingers ached from all the gathering and the green receded from the stone.

They weren’t sure what to do now.

Yuu pulled out their quill, ink, and parchment just to sit and stare at it. They didn’t want to draw, they wanted to… They didn’t know what they wanted to do, but it wasn’t drawing. They wanted to do something more, something that might _help_ more, but until Aphid woke, they didn’t know what else they could do.

Heaviness slammed down upon Yuu’s shoulders, and their head hung beneath the invisible weight. They were restless and scared and needed to do something, but they suddenly didn’t have the energy to stand.

Yuu set their drawing things aside and curled up in the loops of their scarf; it was long enough to wind loosely around their body twice and still fold into a tiny cushion beneath their cheek.

Before them, the world went in and out of focus before ultimately going so dark, it rivaled the void itself.

The sound of muffled cursing brought the world back into focus, and Yuu raised their head to see Aphid moving. She’d turned more onto her side and had her hands beneath her, trying to sit up but looking like she was unable to.

Yuu leaped to their feet and the sudden motion made Aphid jump.

She then winced, the movement apparently hurting something. She was silent as Yuu made their way to her side and then sat down. She went still as they settled, and after a long moment of nothing, she reached up and undid the tie at the back of her head.

Aphid’s mask clattered to the ground, the crack growing longer until it spread from the eyehole to the center between the horns.

Her face was smaller than the mask suggested. She had small, neat mandibles that flexed as she worked her jaw, fingers at her cheek where she’d struck the rock. Two short antennae drooped against her forehead. Her eyes were large and bright turquoise, reflecting the light that filtered in from above.

Those eyes turned to Yuu, and for a moment, they were all the vessel could see.

Then Aphid looked down, acknowledging the clumps of moss and leaves that Yuu had formed into a sort of nest, nearly three layers thick. “That was kind of you,” she said. Her voice was faint, like leaves whispering in a near-still breeze. “How long have I – actually, I guess it doesn’t matter.” Her gaze turned upward to the gap in the brambles. “They didn’t follow?”

Yuu shook their head.

“Why?”

Yuu pointed to the triangular stone that sat a few paces away. It was the only explanation they could think of.

Aphid shifted, squinting at the curved writing. “Ah,” she said, and lay back down, chin resting on her arm. “The Traitor Lord’s child.”

Yuu didn’t know what that meant, but they accepted it as explanation enough.

They sat and rearranged their scarf so it draped over their shoulders and then looped around in a way that wasn’t too restrictive. When that was done, they took the frayed end between their hands and picked splinters from the fabric.

Aphid went silent for so long that Yuu thought she might’ve gone back to sleep. Then “why are you still here?”

Yuu looked at her. They had answers, more than a few, but they didn’t know how to explain any of them, and part of them didn’t want to.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Aphid said, not looking up as she spoke. “I’m far from complaining. I just figured you’re on your way to somewhere. You always look like you’ve got somewhere to go or something to do.”

Yuu nodded. They could at least confirm that.

Aphid hummed. “I feel half dead, so if you’re intending to hang around, it might be a while before I can travel again.” She twisted around so she could look at Yuu without lifting her head. “But, if you’re willing to wait, I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

That sounded like a good idea, and Yuu nodded again.

“Great.”


	7. Chapter 7

Everything went silent again for a while. Aphid went in and out of sleep and didn’t say anything else. Yuu spent some time drawing more plants and then poking around what remained of the moss that grew at the edge of the rock. No more mantises came, and nothing else moved.

Time passed slowly like that. In Hallownest, there were few ways to tell time at all. The light never faded, the dark never lifted; the only breeze that blew was what little disturbance the maskflies created. The plants supposedly grew, but not quickly enough to tell hours or even days by.

It took a while for Yuu to remember they still had Aphid’s charm. With her on the mend and their mind more focused on finding ways to pass the time, it never came up until Aphid was well enough to deal with the cloak Yuu had used to bind her wounds.

“I gotta say,” she muttered, grimacing at the blood and soul-stained fabric. “I miss that hot spring down in Deepnest. If I didn’t think the walk back would more likely kill me than anything else, I’d say we should go back.”

Yuu more than agreed, and they weren’t even injured.

Aphid sighed and tossed the remains of her cloak into the grass. She moved her wings slowly, up and down and then forward and back. The wounds on her back and shoulder looked a bit better, but then, Yuu wasn’t sure how to gauge damage on normal bugs.

“Wish I’d had the good sense to raid my room before I tried to save you back at the Village,” she said. One wing folded forward, and she inspected the ragged edge. “Mantises don’t really believe in medicine or the like; with them, you either survive your wounds or die. I was the only one in the entire place to…” she trailed off, hand going to her collar. Then she turned, quick enough that it looked like it hurt, to look at her cloak again. “I had a charm,” she said, voice suddenly tense. “Did it fall off? Have you seen it?”

A bit surprised at how alarmed Aphid sounded, Yuu pulled the charm out of their void and waved it at her as enthusiastically as they dared. They still didn’t know exactly how fragile charms were, and they didn’t want to incur its wrath by being too rough.

“Oh, you had it.” Aphid let out a breath and held out her hand. “I guess I should’ve known since you were the one who untangled me from my own cloak.”

Yuu looked down at the little charm. The dark parts were dull, but smooth. The gold mantis claws gleamed bright, reflecting the light that came through the overhead thorns. Yuu liked the way it reflected things, and the color was nice. They were a bit reluctant to hand it over, but they still did. They still didn’t trust it not to explode.

“I guess I’ll have to start pinning it to my belt,” Aphid said. She held the charm between two fingers and looked closely at it. “Y’know, considering you don’t use a nail, you could use a charm or two.” She set the charm down and looked at Yuu. It felt like she was inspecting them just as closely as she did the charm. “I don’t know if it’s safe to pin one to the scarf, but I’m not sure where else you’d put it.”

Yuu looked down at themself. Since holding it in the void didn’t count, they didn’t know either.

Aphid grabbed her belt from where Yuu had set it and fiddled with the charm, carefully pinning it to the stiff material.

Yuu watched. With little else to do, the shine of the charm was very distracting. They wanted to know what it did. When Aphid was finished, they patted the ground and then pointed to the charm.

“It’s called ‘Mark of Pride’,” Aphid told them. “I’d let you keep it, but it’s meant to extend the reach of a weapon, specifically a nail, and you don’t carry one.”

Well, that confirmed Yuu’s theory regarding Aphid’s nail. It was short, shorter than the other ones they’d found scattered around Deepnest, and whenever she struck, bugs bled despite the blade looking like it didn’t even touch them.

“Maybe we can find something more defensive for you,” Aphid continued. She set her belt on the ground beside her and looked thoughtfully to the exit tunnel. Through the thorns, the cavern outside was barely visible. “I don’t know where to find one, though. Charms are another thing I never understood about Hallownest. I got this one from the mantises, and as you can probably imagine, they aren’t very keen on sharing their secrets.”

Yuu perked up at that. They hadn’t thought about it in a while (too distracted by, well, pretty much everything), but they still wondered about what happened between Aphid and the mantises after she first tried to save them. They jumped to their feet, scurried over to Aphid’s side, and then sat down again, looking at her expectantly. When she didn’t continue, they patted the ground and waved their hands.

“I feel bad saying this, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”

Yuu pulled out a piece of parchment and their quill. They scratched a quick picture of a mantis (one from the village, not one of the traitors) and then, after considering it for a moment, they drew the charm Aphid had apparently received from them. Then they held it up so Aphid could see.

She did not look like she wanted to tell them.

Yuu waved the picture around a bit. They really wanted to know, and they didn’t think they’d have a better opportunity to ask. It’s not like either of them were going anywhere any time soon.

“The mantises give that charm, the Mark of Pride, to those who defeat their lords in combat,” Aphid said slowly. “Those who have it, have the respect of the tribe and are allowed safe passage through the Village.”

Yuu thought that was a very good thing (they wished they’d had it when they first left Deepnest…) and didn’t understand why she seemed hesitant to talk about it.

“Having their respect doesn’t save traitors,” Aphid continued. Her voice was more even, and no longer so strained. “Which I was immediately labeled as, the second I stopped those three from murdering you. Given the circumstances, I was banished instead of killed. With my history, I guess they figured it was easier to just shove me into Deepnest and be done with it.”

Somehow, Yuu thought back to the Abyss and how they watched the door close and the light fade. Even sitting there with Aphid, they could almost see it just as clearly as when it had happened.

Did she feel the same when she was banished to Deepnest? Did she watch that big door slam shut and feel the same cold that had nothing to do with the darkness?

“They’ll probably be mad when they realize a traitor still has one of their charms. Oh well. If they want it back, they can come find me here.”

She didn’t say anything else on the subject and with their main questions answered, Yuu was content to let it go (for the moment, anyway).

The urge to move was a constant buzz, like something crawling beneath Yuu’s shell. At first it was easy enough to ignore (they’d move quicker with Aphid, and so the wait would be worth it), but then they ran out of parchment.

“There might still be a merchant or two somewhere in the kingdom,” Aphid said, watching as Yuu tried to scratch a drawing into the stone. “I don’t have any geo, but I’m sure we could barter for some more paper for ya. Maybe even a couple bottles of ink and a shiny new quill.”

Yuu flopped onto their stomach and poked at the rock a few more times.

“I’ve given you a curse, haven’t I?” Aphid said. When Yuu looked to her, she was smiling. She hadn’t put her mask on since it broke. It was nice, being able to see her eyes.

The quill’s ink ran dry and Yuu set it aside rather than dipping it back into what little remained in their tiny glass bottle. They could fine a merchant and trade for more? That sounded nice, but how long would that take?

Aphid stood slowly. Her wounds were healing, the deeper cuts on her back fading into scars, but she still had to move carefully, and she couldn’t fly.

Yuu also got to their feet.

“I’m going hunting,” Aphid told them. “You can stay here; I won’t be long.”

That was why Yuu stood when she did.

They ran ahead, for once able to reach the exit tunnel before Aphid did. They stopped in front of her and held out their arms in an attempt to get her attention.

Aphid stared down at them. “I know _you_ apparently don’t need to eat,” she said. “But _I_ do. I didn’t survive the damn mantises just to starve here.”

She made to simply step over Yuu, but they took another step back, arms waving even harder.

Aphid sighed. “What, are _you_ gonna go hunting for me?”

Yuu faltered at that. Were they?

“You don’t seem to know how to use a nail, and you said you didn’t want to anyhow. If you go around tackling or throwing rocks at the bugs around here, you’re gonna wind up dead. Or, well, I guess you’ll just wind up back here, but you get my point.”

They did, but it didn’t change the fact that Aphid only just recently regained the ability to sit up and walk.

“I can hear maskflies out there,” Aphid continued, gaze fixated on whatever lay at the end of the tunnel. “If it takes anything more than a jump to grab one, I’ll come back, okay?”

Yuu didn’t budge, but they had to admit that it was a better deal than what she’d suggested before.

“Will you get out of my way if I say you can come with me?” Aphid sighed.

They were going to go along regardless, but Yuu found themself agreeing. She needed food and they couldn’t hunt. At the very least, they could supervise. (logic told them it didn’t matter, _shouldn’t_ matter, but it still made them feel better).

At least Aphid wasn’t limping as she stepped around Yuu and then ducked through the narrow tunnel. Thorns pressed in on all sides, an antenna’s breadth from her shell and wings, but no closer.

Yuu hopped over the vines that crossed the path. They should probably cut those away when Aphid was done using her nail. No sense in keeping a hazard like that if the two would be staying there for a while.

The thorny tunnel ended in a drop straight down into a larger and brightly lit cavern. Far below, more thorns covered the ground. Pillars of various heights dotted the airspace. They were close enough that Yuu could jump from peak to peak but spread out enough that Aphid would have no trouble flying up and out through a gap in the ceiling.

When she was able to, that is.

For the moment, Aphid paused at the mouth of the tunnel. There, around the very edge of the rock, the thorns receded enough for her to stand.

Yuu joined her, peering around her legs to see what else was in the cavern beyond.

There were a few maskflies, but they were high up, perched on a ledge high above their head. The air still buzzed, but the sound came from the wings of a different sort of bug.

“Mossflies,” Aphid said. She looked quite pleased at the discovery, and it soon became clear as to why.

The mossflies were bigger than maskflies and were covered by what looked like moss (which made sense, given the name). They were fluffy, and their wings buzzed loudly. The sound of Aphid’s voice caught the attention of one that hovered nearby, and it floated slowly toward her.

It did not speed up and did not bare fangs or claws even when Aphid drew her nail and prepared to strike. When she did strike, the nail’s point tore through its wings and the round body fell into her waiting hands.

“It’s almost disappointing, how easy that was,” Aphid sighed.

Yuu wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. They pointed back to the tunnel. Now that she had food, she could go back to the thorn-covered hollow, where it was safe.

However, even after catching her prize, Aphid still stood at the mouth of the tunnel, looking out to the space before her. She looked thoughtful, turquoise eyes reflecting the pale light that fell from above.

Yuu tapped her knee and pointed back at the tunnel again.

“The tram never reached this far,” Aphid said slowly. Her gaze traveled downward, settling on where the thorns covered the stone below. The ground didn’t seem even, but sloped even further downward before fading out of sight. “I heard there’s a Stag Station, though. I have no idea where it is, but it might be worth looking for.”

It did sound intriguing, but Yuu would prefer Aphid look for it when she could at least walk without limping.

“Just saying,” she continued before finally turning and creeping back through the thorn tunnel. “Y’know, if you get bored.”

Yuu lingered just a moment more, leaning forward as far as they dared. Far down, so far that the light was reduced to dapples of bright, there was a bare spot of rock. If they jumped, could they manage to land there?

It occurred to them that even if they missed, they would simply return to the thorn hollow, which, for once, was not a significant setback. Until Aphid was well enough to fly and fight, they wouldn’t be making progress anyway.

When they returned to the thorn hollow (or grave, the grave of the traitor’s daughter), Aphid was building a fire. She’d made a small pile of dry moss and struck a rock with her nail in a way that made sparks. The moss caught, and she fed bits of vine and thorn into the growing blaze.

Yuu wandered close, staring at the bright orange light. They weren’t sure if it was the color or the light that got to them, but the sight made them feel strange. Not scared, but off balance, like they’d spun around really fast, or like Aphid had flown them across the Gardens.

“You alright?” Aphid asked. The small flame sent shadows dancing across her face, and orange was reflected in turquoise eyes.

The vessel shook their head and took a step back. The fire aside, they didn’t like _that_ one bit. The color, the light, the heat, it was all _bad_ and they wanted it to go away. Scared now, Yuu turned and scurried off to where they’d left their quill and ink bottle (no sense in holding them since they had no paper left). Unable to draw, they sat down there and hugged their scarf so tight their arms felt numb.

Footsteps tapped against the rock, pausing just a pace behind them.

“Hey,” Aphid said. She slowly crouched beside them until Yuu didn’t have to crane their neck so far to see her face. “The fire isn’t going to hurt you. It’s just to burn out some of the infection from my food.”

With the light further away, the orange glint in her eyes was gone. Her head was tilted in a questioning way, voice colored with… scared? Not quite, but reminiscent.

“If it bothers you so much, I’ll put it out,” Aphid added. “But it really isn’t going to hurt you.”

The vessel glanced back to the small flame. It flickered brightly, eating through the thorns and twigs that had been placed at its center. Fire was bright and wispy, like a leave caught in wind. It wasn’t infection, but it looked far too close.

Aphid followed their gaze and made a soft noise. “I see.” She sat, legs crossed before her. “I’ll admit, I don’t know much about the infection, but I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with fire. I agree, though, the resemblance is a bit uncanny. Still, they’re not the same. When the infection spread to the land… it didn’t look like that.”

Being trapped in the abyss from the beginning, Yuu never actually saw the infection when it took over the kingdom. They knew about it (sometimes they wondered why and how), but they’d never seen it up close aside from the bright orange of infected bugs in Deepnest. Still, they thought Aphid was right.

Yuu turned away, instead looking again to Aphid’s eyes. Closer to the edge of the hollow and further away from the light, the turquoise was vivid though not so bright. The green of the surrounding plants reflected back at the vessel when Aphid looked down at them.

Not infection. Light, but not the bad kind. No orange in Aphid’s eyes or anywhere else on her.

The sight made them feel better, though the unbalanced feeling didn’t go away. Yuu still didn’t like the fire.

However, the longer they considered it, they figured it was better that Aphid didn’t eat infected things. If burning was a way to get rid of it, then it couldn’t be too bad, even if it _did_ look scarily close to something they very much did not want to think about.

When Aphid stood and returned to her spot beside the fire, Yuu followed. They sat beside her, though further from the fire. While she plucked the green from her mossfly, they snapped thorns off the nearest vine and tossed them into the flame. They might dislike the fire, but watching the thorns burn away into nothing made them feel a bit better.

The two wanderers were quiet for a time as Aphid carefully roasted her mossfly and Yuu absentmindedly threw plant bits into the fire. The longer the two sat and the orange remained contained to the flickering flame, the less tension seized their chest.

“I guess I picked a bad time to ask again, since you ran out of paper,” Aphid said after a while. “But is there something else I can call you? Y’know, other than ‘you’?”

The vessel nodded and patted the ground.

“Oh yeah?” Aphid used her nail to poke at the mossfly where it sat close to the fire. “Well, is it something you can explain now? Or should I ask again once you have more drawing stuff?”

Given what they were basing their name off of, Yuu wasn’t sure ‘drawing stuff’ would help anyhow. They nodded and patted the ground again.

Aphid turned so she was facing them more. The fire reflected against her side, an orange glow dancing across her shell. “Well, we got time more than anything else, so what did you come up with?”

Yuu nodded again and pointed at themself.

“Okay? You…?” she sounded like she was waiting for them to elaborate.

They just nodded again.

“ _You?_ ” Aphid repeated. “That’s what you want to be called? Just ‘ _you’_?”

Another nod.

She smiled, looked like she was going to say something else, and then just shook her head. “Alright then. Whatever makes _you_ happy.” She turned back to the mossfly and turned it so the other side was facing the fire. “I’m spelling it different if I ever write it,” she added. “Not gonna make it confusing on purpose.”

Yuu didn’t really understand the difference so they just nodded again.

“Yuu,” Aphid said thoughtfully. Orange reflected in her eyes again, but it was less scary than before. “Forget what I said before. If that’s what you wanna be called, that’s all that matters.”

Even if it didn’t sound any different, the change made Yuu feel warm inside. (Good warm, not bad warm like fire.) They had a name. They’d never needed one before, had never needed a way to differentiate themself from their purpose or the rest of their siblings. Perhaps they still didn’t need to, but it felt nice to have one all the same.

Yuu.


	8. Chapter 8

More cycles of Aphid sleeping and then waking passed. Yuu didn’t know how else to tell time aside from when Aphid could talk to them, and when she couldn’t.

They enjoyed when she was awake. She was quiet, and didn’t speak often, but when she did, it was always interesting. At the very least, Yuu liked the sound of someone talking. It was a good sound after the endless chittering and hissing of Deepnest, and it made the near silence of the Garden’s more bearable.

“Hers is a sad story,” she said at one point, nodding at the sharp stone grave marker. “I don’t know it fully; she died before I ever arrived in Hallownest.

“The Mantis Village in the Fungal Wastes is ruled by three lords, sisters who’ve proven themselves to be the wisest leaders and strongest fighters. However, I guess there used to be a fourth. They had a brother who was also considered a lord, though he gave up that title when the infection began spreading that far south. Instead of standing with the others, he embraced the infection, trading his mind for the power it gave.

“A few others joined him, and they now make up the tribe of traitors that were banished here. Well, the Village mantises say ‘banished’. I’m beginning to wonder if they didn’t _choose_ to live in a place such as this.”

Yuu sat and listened. They felt they could almost see what she was describing: the three lords and their traitor brother, the civil war that nearly broke out when the tribe split in two, the bugs that fell in the crossfire.

“I don’t know what side his daughter was on, though I think she stayed loyal to the uninfected. She’d fallen in love with one of the king’s five knights, and when her father demanded her loyalty, I think she chose to stay.

“There are a lot of different ideas of how she died. Some say her father killed her for her rejection, others say she was killed in the crossfire when the traitors clashed with the rest of the tribe. A few think she and her lover killed themselves before the fighting or infection could take either away from the other.” Aphid shrugged. “Either way, it’s not a story that has a happy ending.”

It certainly wasn’t. Suddenly, looking at the lone grave marker made Yuu feel empty and heavy inside.

“Sometimes I wonder what happened to her lover. The king’s knights faded from history in the same way he did, so no one knows if she’s even still alive. In a way, I kind of hope she isn’t. If their bond was as strong as the rumors say, I can’t imagine how she might feel, knowing her love’s grave lay in the heart of enemy territory.”

Yuu found they couldn’t imagine it either. They didn’t want to.

Eventually, Aphid went hunting again. Though Yuu still didn’t enjoy the killing of bugs who posed little threat to them, they liked following on her hunting trips, even if they rarely consisted of anything more strenuous than standing at the mouth of the tunnel and waiting for a mossfly to fly within striking range.

Yuu got to keep the moss-like fluff that Aphid pulled from her prey before cooking them. They gathered it into a pile and curled up on it when the world grew heavy. They placed it close to the edge of the plain rock, opposite to the fire. They were growing used to it, but they still didn’t like the orange.

Aphid was kind enough to only keep it around when she needed it. Once she deemed her food infection-free, she stopped feeding the flames and let them die until the surrounding rocks stopped glowing red.

She was sleeping when the urge to move gripped Yuu so completely that they found it impossible to stay still. They wouldn’t leave, not without Aphid (though she was growing stronger), but they needed to go _somewhere_ , needed to see someplace that wasn’t the thorny hollow.

The tunnel was slightly less dangerous by then (when they got bored, they plucked thorns from the surrounding vines), so Yuu barely had to even duck as they wandered through to the other side.

Pale light beat down from overhead and mossflies buzzed lazily through the air.

Below, they could see the bare patch of rock. It was far away and seemed very small, but it was there. If they were careful, they could make it.

Yuu took a careful step forward, leaning forward until their back ached from the effort of keeping their balance.

If they jumped, how would they get back?

The pillars that speared through the tall cavern were of all different heights. A few were lower to the ground, closer to the clear spot. All had vines, some thorny and some not, winding around and through the stone. It might be hard, but they could return by jumping and climbing.

Which was a good thing, since at that moment, Yuu’s legs wobbled and they pitched forward into the open air.

All sound was snatched away as they fell. The world blurred. Yuu’s mask felt cold, their limbs ached as they flailed.

_Wham!_

The ground was unforgivingly hard.

Yuu bounced a few times before rolling to a stop beside some tall plants with wide green leaves.

It took a while for the spinning/flying/floating feeling to fade enough for Yuu to sit up and then stand. They were very close to an intimidating growth of thorns and took a few steps away. Nothing moved, but they didn’t trust it.

Above, the mossflies continued to buzz, apparently none noticing the vessel that fell straight through their territory. They continued not to notice as Yuu turned and started walking.

They were standing on a stone path, though it was mostly overgrown with thorns. Before them, the path broke into another drop straight down through another cavern and then ended in a sea of thorns.

Okay, so not that way.

On the other side of the gap, the path lead through a shadowed hall that was likewise overgrown, though the plants that crawled up the walls had fewer thorns. It was hard to see, but they were pretty sure the other side opened up into another large space.

That seemed much more promising.

Yuu leaped over the gap and then ran ahead, each footstep echoing softly.

The space was green. So many plants grew up the walls and ceiling that the light itself was a vivid green dappling the cracked stone. Was this the stagway station Aphid had talked about?

It was beautiful. An iron fence made of delicate arches ran along one side, separating the space within from an overgrown grove. A bench sat close by, dark against green. The other wall was made of stone, further away from the light and in shadow.

Yuu wandered in slowly, looking around at everything. They wished they had more parchment. They wanted to draw the way the plants hung like curtains and the white flowers that dotted the shadows and the curly plants that pushed through the cracks in the floor.

Little glowing specks of white floated through the air. They weren’t lumiflies. They made Yuu think of the glowing white plants that grew in certain parts of Deepnest.

At the back of the hall, the pathway ended with a small gate. A pole stood beside it, signs hanging from the metal arm. Yuu didn’t know what they meant, but they liked the faded markings that had been painted on. They wanted to draw those too.

Beyond the little gate was a lower track that led straight to a giant metal gate. The metal bars were too close together for Yuu to think of slipping through, but they could see what lay on the other side: a huge tunnel that burrowed underground as far as the light reached and then beyond.

Yuu didn’t think it was very fair that they ran out of paper. They wanted to draw everything they saw! They wanted to show Aphid! They wanted to see even more things!

It occurred to them that they’d been wandering for a while now and still had a very long climb between the stagway and the thorny hollow. They should probably go back soon.

They took their time, pausing to poke at flowers and pick up nice-looking rocks. Nothing they saw could be used as a weapon, but the stagway seemed to be safe. The only sound was of leaves whispering against each other. There was no sign of mantises, petra, traitor, or otherwise. There weren’t even maskflies.

The lack of both enemies and thorns made Yuu feel light and like they wanted to run, but in a not-scared way. The feeling was bright and warm, and they liked it very much, staring up at the plants that hung down.

Leaves rustled a bit louder than the others and quiet footsteps hit the ground.

Yuu whipped around in alarm.

They didn’t recognize the bug before them. She stood tall enough that their head only came to her shoulder. Her mask had two slim horns curving from the back and she wore a red cloak.

A needle was held at her side.

Yuu stared. She looked like a vessel, but something inside them told them that wasn’t the case.

She looked at the vessel and didn’t move for a moment. Then “I see you have escaped your prison. Commendable, but you shall go no further.” She raised her needle in a smooth arc until Yuu was staring down the razor-sharp point. “Farewell, little shadow.”

_Hornet._

The name appeared in Yuu’s mind a moment before she threw her needle.

They leaped aside just in time to avoid getting skewered. Scared. The urge to run flooded their body until they couldn’t think of anything else. As Hornet retrieved her weapon (it flew back into her hand as if summoned), they scrambled forward, racing back the way they came as fast as they possibly could.

Whoever Hornet was, she was not like any other bug Yuu had faced. They might not have ever seen her before, but that truth rang as clear as the distinction between light and void.

She chased after the vessel as they desperately searched for an escape. When they glanced back, they saw her swing through the air, holding onto a shimmering length of silk.

Yuu looked back to the path before them just in time to realize they were about to reach a dead end. They could climb up and back to the thorny hollow (the mantises didn’t follow them that far. Would Hornet likewise be deterred?), but not fast enough to escape Hornet’s needle.

The air hissed when she threw it again, and Yuu dove down through the gap in the path just as the deadly point imbedded itself in the stone just above their head.

They fell down, down, down, until they struck cold metal. Yuu had landed on another one of those dreaded platforms, the ones that fell out from under them if they stayed still too long. Between that and the hunter right on their heels, Yuu jumped to their feet and then threw themself toward the next.

Hornet swung down from above, forcing Yuu to duck as her needle slashed through the air above their head.

Too long. Hornet landed on a platform higher up and Yuu fell straight down.

They managed to land on another, but barely had time to get to their feet when Hornet threw her needle. The point struck the platform just as Yuu jumped, desperately reaching for the next.

Up ahead, there was a break in the mess of thorns, a covered area that sat like an island amid a sea of thorns, and Yuu raced toward it, leaping from platform to platform.

Hornet was right behind them, swinging onto a nearby platform and then giving chase on foot. She was fast, so much faster, and Yuu had no idea how they were supposed to survive this.

For the first time in a while, they felt the scared, sinking feeling of realizing that there was no way to get out alive. They’d be broken there and wind up back at the stagway or perhaps in the thorny hollow, and then they’d have to brave Hornet’s needle a second time to retrieve their shade before it slipped back to the abyss.

Her needle whistled through the air again, and Yuu was so focused on diving out of its path, they didn’t realize there was a mantis petra napping on one of the platforms until they landed on it.

The petra hissed and thrashed, throwing Yuu forward.

They landed hard beneath the covered area. The impact stunned them for just a moment, just long enough that they heard the hiss of a boomerang.

No, no, no! They had a mantis petra after them too now? It wasn’t fair!  
However, the boomerang wasn’t aimed toward them. When it didn’t crash into the ground by Yuu’s feet, they looked back just in time to see Hornet dart around the attack and strike the mantis petra with a wide slash of her needle.

The mantis petra came apart midair and Yuu didn’t look long enough to see the pieces hit the thorns.

They were running again, somehow even more scared than before as they raced to the other side of the covered area and then to the platforms beyond. The mantis had only bought them a few seconds, but they weren’t going to waste them!

Hornet didn’t chase them through the covered area but must have swung over it. She landed on the platform just before the one Yuu landed on. It was impossible to see the face that lay beneath her mask, but it almost seemed like she was having fun. She shouted something when she next threw her needle.

Yuu jumped down and hoped there was another platform to catch them. There was, but there was also another mantis petra. It must have been woken by the commotion, and as Yuu darted away, its wings buzzed, and a boomerang readied in its claws.

The sound of the mantis clashing with Hornet sounded similar to the first, and Yuu didn’t dare look back. They didn’t have to: they could hear the petra fail and Hornet resume the chase.

Ahead, the cavern ended in another hall. Mantises, big, non-flying ones, were running to the spot and Yuu felt something in them sink. They already knew they wouldn’t escape Hornet without a miracle.

Was it too much to hope the mantises would help them? Or that they would at least slow Hornet down long enough for them to escape?

Most likely, they’d just kill Yuu first and then fight Hornet for their shade.

As it turned out, they were partly right on all accounts.

Yuu was balanced on the last platform, about to jump toward the ground (and mantises) when Hornet’s needle found its mark.

The force of it knocked them forward, the point piercing straight through their chest. The shock jolted them forward even further, and Yuu rolled a few times after striking the ground.

It hurt unlike anything they’d endured before. It was beyond fragile, beyond fractured; Yuu felt like they’d already shattered into a billion tiny pieces.

Hornet yanked her needle back and a gush of void followed the blade.

Yuu couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Scared and sinking and cold and too bright all swam in their head, thoughts flashing through their mind too fast to capture.

Above them, an argument broke out. Or, _something_ like an argument. It was too hard to focus on the words, but Hornet was speaking quiet and cold, her voice hissing as sharp as her needle. Black stained the metal and void floated upwards.

The mantises were likewise hissing, though much louder. They were bigger than the mantises that had chased Yuu back in the Mantis Village and their eyes glowed a terrible orange. They hissed and snarled at Hornet as she approached. The mantises were larger than her too, but Yuu had a feeling that the difference didn’t mean much.

A fight broke out, but it was very hard to follow. As far as Yuu understood, Hornet struck down the mantis closest to her, and the other two did not take kindly to the action. They lashed out and Hornet reacted in kind.

Before them, the world faded in and out. Void floated up from their chest, staining their scarf black. The light that filtered in overhead was far too bright.

The fight ended. Yuu couldn’t tell who won until they heard the quiet footsteps draw closer.

Hornet’s needle now dripped with orange as well as void. The point was all Yuu could see for a moment. She spoke, but they didn’t hear what she said. Then she was walking away.

Did she think they were already dead? Or did she figure they’d die soon enough as it was, and didn’t think finishing them off was worth the effort?

It didn’t matter in the end. Time passed and distantly, Yuu realized how bad their situation was. Void still spilled into the air, but they couldn’t actually bleed out the way a bug would. They weren’t safe and had no soul to heal with. They had no energy to end things themself and return to the stagway or thorny hollow. All they could do was lie and wait for something to find them and put an end to whatever was left of them.

A different kind of hurt exploded in Yuu’s chest and they shook with the force of it. They wanted to make a noise, they wanted to strike something. They wanted to run, they wanted to hide. They wanted to be held again, the way Aphid had held them when she saved them from the thorns.

They should never have left her. They should’ve waited. They should’ve stayed.

Everything grew fuzzier the longer Yuu lay there, and they wondered if it was possible to just stay there until they were healed. Damage repaired slowly, which was why they waited in safe places when they didn’t have soul to speed up the process (which was most of the time), but they knew better than to assume the hall in which they lay was any kind of safe. It was only a matter of time before the mantis traitors returned, or Hornet came back to finish what she’d started.

Distantly, there was the sound of something jumping across the platforms. The clang of metal began quiet but was growing louder as the bug drew closer. Yuu was lying the wrong way around and couldn’t turn to see who it was, but they could guess.

So, the mantises did return for them. It was disappointing, but not surprising, and Yuu found they didn’t even have the energy to feel scared anymore. Just disappointed. Disappointed and heavy, like they were sinking into the ground beneath them.

They were still fading in and out of awareness when the bug landed in the hall a few paces away. Footsteps tapped lightly across the cracked stone floor.

There was a pause, and then gentle hands were lifting the vessel into the air.


	9. Chapter 9

Yuu didn’t realize they’d completely lost consciousness until they woke in an unfamiliar place. It looked like they were still in the Queen’s Gardens (the plants looked the same) but not in an area they’d seen before. The ceiling was low, and the space was narrow. Shadows danced across the ground and only a few tiny beams of light managed to come through the thick leaf cover overhead.

A single large corpse sat at the end of the passageway. Its eyes leaked black. Void? Yuu wasn’t sure.

They didn’t want to know.

Void still floated from their chest, but the wound was a bit smaller than before. They still didn’t have the energy to stand, but they could sit up and look around more. How did they get there?

The answer became obvious when leaves rustled and someone came down through the narrow tunnel of leaves.

Aphid was holding a mossfly when she ducked into the space at the end. “You’re awake,” she said, looking at Yuu. She was wearing her mask again, face hidden behind the cracked white. “I was starting to think you’re whole ‘not able to die’ thing was a big fairy-tale after all.”

Yuu looked at her without really seeing. They understood that she was there (that made them feel better), but all other thoughts were too hard to focus on.

“Lie down, will you?” Aphid said. She sat beside them (she was so tall that she had to bend her knees even when sitting with her back to the opposite wall) and began plucking green fluff from the mossfly in her hands. “I don’t know what happened to you, but it looked bad. I thought I’d lost you for a while there. It didn’t help that I have no idea how to help a thing like you.” She nodded at them, seeming to indicate the hole that still ran through Yuu’s chest. “Your blood is black and floats, and I’ve never seen a bug survive a wound that severe.”

To be truthful, Yuu was also surprised they didn’t break from it. Perhaps they were getting stronger? It felt like a bad time to do so, but they found it hard to complain given how everything turned out.

Now sitting, they looked down at their scarf. Black stained the parts they’d fallen on. They didn’t like that and wished they could find somewhere to wash it off. Again, they thought of the hot spring in Deepnest. It was far from worth the trek back down, but they couldn’t help but wish they were there instead.

“To tell you the truth, I’m quite mad at you,” Aphid said after a pause. She didn’t look up from her mossfly. “When I woke, you were gone. I couldn’t tell if you decided to move on without me, or if you’d been trapped or killed in some horrific way. I understand if you changed your mind about waiting, but I’d prefer you tell me so I know whether to expect your return or not. It took too long for me to decide to look for you.”

Though she said she was mad, Yuu didn’t get the same sinking feeling the expression usually gave them. They continued to look in Aphid’s general direction without really seeing anything. They still felt like understanding what was before them took far too much energy.

“What _did_ happen to you?” Aphid continued. Her hands paused in their work. One reached up to tilt her mask back. Her eyes looked in need of rest when Yuu saw them. “I know you didn’t kill the mantises I saw on my way here, and as far as I know, mantises, even mantis traitors, don’t use weapons that could cause a wound like that.” Her gaze settled on the hole at Yuu’s chest. “If a mantis caught you, there would be nothing left.”

Not that they’d actually forgotten Hornet and how she nearly killed them, but the memory had been blissfully vague and in the back of Yuu’s mind until she said that. All at once, the memories crashed down on them so fast that they found themself shaking all over again.

Yuu wanted to tell her everything: the stagway station and the plants and Hornet and the platform chase and the mantises and how scared they’d been at the end of it all. However, they had no way of communicating it, so they wound up smacking the ground instead.

“Hey, take it easy there. There’s still a hole going straight through you. Oh!” Aphid brightened and reached for something stowed away beneath the broad leaves of a short plant. “I found some old crates while hunting. I figured it might make you feel better.” She set Yuu’s old quill, a full bottle of ink, and a small stack of parchment onto the ground between them. “Makes talking to you easier too.”

Though it did nothing to speed the recovery of the hole through their chest, Yuu did feel better. Their arms were weak and their hands shook, but they still reached for their quill, intent on showing Aphid what they’d seen.

First, they drew Hornet. Yuu had so many questions regarding her, most revolving around why she tried to kill them. Of course, most bugs tried to kill them, but there was something different about her. She wasn’t infected, for one. (the mantises from the Village weren’t either, but that felt different). And though she was taller, maybe older, she still looked so much like a vessel. She wasn’t one, Yuu knew, but she looked so similar that it _had_ to mean _something_.

Most of all, she spoke. Hornet wasn’t infected, she looked like a vessel, she was able to speak in the language of Hallownest, and there seemed to be logic behind her attempt on Yuu’s life. She might not have said much, but she was so calm and cold when she spoke. Whatever her motive, it wasn’t the same furious frenzy that overtook the mantises when they chased Yuu through their Village.

Yuu stared down at their drawing. Their hands had shook, making the lines wobbly, but it still sort of looked like Hornet. They wished they could color her cloak (the red stood out bright in their mind), but the depiction was close enough to get the point across.

Finished, they showed the picture to Aphid. Unable to hold it steady, it was more accurate to say they shoved it at her.

“Okay, okay,” Aphid said, voice bright and smiling. She set the mossfly aside and traded Yuu the green fluff for their picture. Her gaze darkened when she looked down. “Oh.”

She was quiet for a long moment and Yuu leaned forward, staring intently. The motion hurt, but they recognized the recognition and their desire to understand overtook everything else.

“I don’t know her name,” Aphid said slowly.

It was Hornet, but Yuu wasn’t sure how to communicate that.

“But I’ve seen her before. Just once or twice, but I _have_ seen her.” Aphid handed Yuu the paper back. “The other mantises called her the ‘knight princess’ of Hallownest. Supposedly, she defeated the mantis lords back before the traitor lord left, and then ran off before the tribe could give her the charm.”

Yuu believed her.

“I met her once when I was out patrolling with the mantises. I was part of the tribe back then, and made to attack her on sight; it was what I was told to do when we found outsiders on our, _their_ , land. The rest of the group stopped me, citing the treaty the lords had made with the kingdom. Did she do this to you?”

Yuu wanted to explain everything that happened, but they weren’t sure what pictures to draw. What could they draw that would express how different they thought she was? How they knew she had a purpose (one she was created for, like them) and how, despite the resemblance, she wasn’t a vessel?

“Thinking back on it, she kinda looks like you. Taller, pointier, and a bit more chatty, but still.”

An idea struck them, and Yuu started drawing again. They drew a shade, specifically Hornet’s shade if she had one. Then they set the paper on the ground and pointed at it until Aphid very gently asked them to calm down before they hurt themself even more.

“So, she _is_ like you?” Aphid asked.

Yuu shook their head and drew a line through the imaginary shade. When Aphid didn’t react, they drew more lines until the image was almost indecipherable.

“She’s _not_ like you,” Aphid corrected. “But she’s close, right? That kind of resemblance usually means _something_.”

A nod. Yuu leaned back, wincing as they did so. Their chest felt fragile, like pieces of them might fall out if they moved too fast. They shouldn’t have pointed so much.

“I guess that brings me back to my first question,” Aphid said. “What are _you?_ ”

Before, Yuu had no idea how to answer that. Now, they had a lot of paper, a full bottle of ink, and more time than they knew what to do with.

However, when they had the tip of their quill against the parchment, they hesitated.

Explaining the entirety of their nature would mean Aphid would know what they were, what they were made to do, but also how they had no purpose beyond that. They were a vessel, and not even a good one, deemed impure for reasons both understood and unknown.

_I see you have escaped your prison…_

Was that why Hornet attacked them? The mantises apparently attacked anything and everything that came out of Deepnest (and apparently other places), but Hornet seemed too logical for that, and what she said was too specific. Even if she wasn’t a vessel, maybe she knew about them. Maybe that was why she tried to kill them.

It made sense. The pure vessel had already been chosen and ascended. If Yuu thought about it more thoroughly, they’d see that there was no point in trying to aid their sibling in the fight against the Old Light; the pure vessel was already doing what needed to be done. Would having another vessel around even do anything?

The quill dropped from Yuu’s hand. Confused, they looked down to find they were shaking.

They’d escaped the Abyss and survived Deepnest so they could accomplish their purpose, so they could seal away the Light that plagued the dreams of the kingdom. It never occurred to them that the deed was already being done. The Light was sealed away, and their sibling was most likely locked away with it. Could they even reach them to help?

And if they couldn’t accomplish their purpose… then what? What were they doing? Why were they there? With nothing to do and no reason to exist, they might as well be back in the Abyss, living out the rest of their existence with the shades of their similarly discarded siblings.

Yuu was sure that this revelation wouldn’t have bothered them before. They had no preference between Deepnest and the Abyss, and if they had no purpose, it didn’t matter where they were.

But now? They found the idea of returning to the Abyss nearly as painful as being run through by Hornet’s needle. Again, they _wanted_ something. They wanted to stay. They wanted to be in the Gardens, they wanted to keep exploring, to keep drawing. They wanted to be with Aphid.

“Hey!” Aphid said, and they realized she’d been talking for a while now. “Yuu? Hey, are you alright? Yuu?”

Yuu looked up to find Aphid leaning over them. She looked… scared?

“I don’t know where you went just then,” she said slowly. “And you really don’t have to tell me. In truth, it doesn’t matter. Whether you can’t or don’t want to… Really, it’s not worth going back to wherever your mind was just now.”

Mind.

Right. One of the reasons Yuu had been deemed impure.

_No mind to think._

That couldn’t possibly be true, not with as many thoughts warring in their head.

Yuu gathered their scarf to their chest and hugged it tight. They sat like that for a long while.

“You worry me,” Aphid told them once the shaking stopped. She was holding the mossfly in one hand and her nail in the other. She used the blade to crack open the shell and then grimaced at the orange insides. “You don’t have to tell me anything, you’re entitled to your secrets. But you keep throwing yourself at dangerous things, and I’m not sure what just happened here. I know you say you can’t die, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Her words felt nice, warm in a way that almost burned, but Yuu wasn’t quite sure how she meant it. Despite the way they still felt like they were falling to pieces, thoughts did not inflict any wounds or worsen any pre-existing damage. This new hurt they felt was distracting, but imaginary.

“Will you try to get some rest?” Aphid said. She set the mossfly down and cleaned the blade of her nail on a nearby plant. “You still look awful, and I don’t know what else to do for a wound like that, other than have you sleep through it.”

Yuu didn’t feel the heaviness they usually did before submitting to rest, but they still didn’t have the energy to stand, and when they retrieved their quill (they’d dropped it, making an ugly smear on the paper below), their hands shook for another reason.

Perhaps rest was a good idea.

“We’re on the east side of the Gardens,” Aphid told them as Yuu tucked their new drawing things away into the void. “I’m starting to think the mantis traitors convene further north, and I’ve never heard of that bug in red hanging around an area for longer than a few moments, so we should be safe here for a while. After that, I say we keep heading east and cut through the Fungal Wastes. At the very least, I know the route to Greenpath from there. I don’t think I should be flying yet anyway, and the path through the Wastes can be climbed.”

Yuu tucked the green fluff beneath them (they wished they had the rest Aphid had given them) and then curled up in the loops of their scarf.

“I think there’s a merchant there too,” Aphid added. She was watching the vessel as they made themself comfortable in a makeshift nest of grass and green fluff and their own scarf. When they settled, she leaned over and rearranged the loose end of the fabric so it draped over them more fully. “Maybe I can get another cloak and you can get a charm or two. Of course, then I’d have to figure out how to get some geo…”

Aphid continued to speak, but Yuu found it hard to focus on the words. They felt strangely secure in their makeshift bed made of thrown-together materials. It was warm too.

The world blurred and Yuu distantly wondered if this was ‘sleep’. They knew what sleep was, and they’d seen Aphid do it. They’d always assumed that vessels didn’t sleep because they had no eyes to close and no mind that needed rest (they were pretty sure the heaviness that occasionally plagued their shell was something different entirely). However, maybe it _was_ sleep.

If so, sleep was nice.

When Yuu woke, they and Aphid took their time returning to the road. The dead-end trail they’d hid away in was close to a more well-trodden path, and the traffic made Yuu worried. They wanted to keep going, but they weren’t sure what would happen if mantises showed up while both they and Aphid were injured.

They didn’t know how Aphid’s wounds were holding up, but she moved more easily than before. Her wings still moved stiffly when she moved them at all, but there was nothing more severe.

The hole in Yuu’s chest was on its way to closing. Void still leaked out if they moved to quick or jumped too hard, but it didn’t hinder their ability to keep up as Aphid led them further east.

It helped that the way was clear. The only bugs they found were maskflies and the occasional mossfly, though it looked like they were swiftly reaching the edge of their territory.

The further east the two wandered, the more humid the air turned. The ground became damp and squishy underfoot, slick moss and mud covering the rock.

Yuu couldn’t exactly smell, but they could feel a shift in the air. It burned.

“I forgot,” Aphid muttered when they paused beside a thick growth of mushrooms. “There’s a big pool of acid between us and the main section of the Wastes. Usually, I fly across…”

Right. She’d said there was acid in the Wastes. Yuu had never encountered acid, but they knew what it was, and they didn’t feel the need to investigate further.

The two moved on again, but it was only a short while before the dirt path they’d been following ended in a drop over the acid Aphid had mentioned.

Yuu leaned forward, peering down at the bright and bubbling liquid. Aphid had put her mask back on before leaving the hollow in the Queen’s Gardens, but Yuu thought the color was the same as her eyes.

“I used to make fun of the bugs that needed to hop across the purple mushrooms in order to get across,” Aphid sighed. “I suppose I deserve this.”

Round purple mushrooms grew both around and in the middle of the acid. The surfaces looked shiny and smooth and not easy to maintain balance on.

She looked to where Yuu was still leaning precariously close to the edge. “I can’t carry you across. Usually I would, but as it is, it will be a struggle to maintain balance on my own. No sense in both of us going down if the worst happens.”

Absolutely incredible. Aphid managed to introduce them to an even worse method of travel than the faulty platforms over the thorns.

Yuu was considering asking to just go back to the Gardens when Aphid handed them her nail. “It’s not to fight with,” she said before they could protest. “I’m tall enough to jump across as is. I think you’re too light to bounce off the mushrooms without hitting them.”

And things just kept getting worse.

“You should be able to reach the first one from here,” Aphid continued. “They’re easier to keep balance on than they look. When you jump again, strike the mushroom when you’ve reached the peak of your jump. You should be strong enough to bounce from there.”

This knowledge did not make anything better. Yuu gripped the end of Aphid’s nail so hard their hands went numb.

Aphid looked like she was going to jump, but then she stopped, looking back at Yuu. “Actually, you should take this too.” She carefully removed the Mark of Pride charm from her belt and handed it to them. “I’m too used to the extended reach and I forgot how short the blade really is. Pin it to your scarf, and it should make things easier.”

Yuu just stared at her. This also made nothing better. (Well, technically it did, but Yuu didn’t feel like it) They gingerly accepted the charm. The fact that they were handling it in a space that was decisively _not_ safe made them nervous. They still didn’t know what would happen if they didn’t handle it carefully.

“Just go fast and don’t think about it,” Aphid said. “I’ll meet you on the other side.” Then she jumped off the ledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got two or three different places mixed up in my head when writing that last bit and didn't realize until I replayed the game. oh well. The idea is that Hallownest is a lot bigger than what we're able to access in the game, since the game is entirely 2D, so there's probably an area like this somewhere.


	10. Chapter 10

Despite being hindered by healing wounds, Aphid was able to follow her own advice quite well. She’d barely landed on one mushroom before leaping to the next. It looked more like she was simply running across the acid.

Yuu stared down at the bubbling and hissing turquoise. Mist rose from the surface and made the air burn. They couldn’t decide whether the acid was better or worse than the pits of spikes in Deepnest.

The cavern’s ceiling lowered about halfway across the pool, creating a low space between two mushrooms and blocking the acid’s end from sight. Hardly a moment after leaving the ledge, Aphid was dashing through the gap and continuing on to the other side.

The choice was to either try or be left behind. Why were they so hesitant to follow? It’s not like Yuu could die . They’d told Aphid this many times; it was why they were fine with ‘throwing themself into danger’, as she’d continually put it.

If they fell in, all that would happen was that they would be sent back to the enclosed path in the Gardens. They’d been set back in similar ways more times than they could count when they were back in Deepnest. What made this so… scary?

Enough time passed that Aphid must be on the other side by then. If they hesitated any longer, she might become worried again. She might go back for them, risking the trip a second time (and then a third when they crossed back).

Yuu did as she’d asked and pinned the charm to their scarf. They were half expecting it to explode in their face, but when it didn’t, they wrapped the frayed ends of the fabric as tight around their shoulders as they dared, holding whatever wouldn’t stay up. Of all times to trip over the end, in the middle of crossing a pool of acid was quite possibly the worst.

With their scarf wrapped up as much as possible, the pin safely secured to the fabric, and Aphid’s nail clutched in their hand, Yuu ran out of reasons to not follow across the mushrooms.

Aphid told them not to think, and Yuu felt their shade twist in knots as they recalled how much easier that would be if they were a proper vessel. No mind to think, and all. Unfortunately, that was their second biggest failure.

Still, they managed to throw themself forward before they could stop themself.

They intended to leap across the way Aphid had, but as soon as their feet touched the purple mushroom, they realized that wouldn’t be possible. Their feet slipped almost as soon as they landed, and they wound up stabbing Aphid’s nail through the bouncy material before they could fall off entirely.

For a moment, they stayed very still, clinging to the nail and hoping it wouldn’t tear through the mushroom further. When it didn’t, they very slowly hauled themselves up to balance on the rounded surface.

The purple wobbled beneath their feet, and Yuu nearly fell off a second time. Their scarf was coming unwrapped again, one end falling from their shoulder and swaying as they tried to balance.

Mushroom travel was officially worse than both the Garden’s faulty platforms and Deepnest’s pits of spikes and infected larva. Actually, as Yuu regained their balance and stared across the acid to the next nearest mushroom, they decided the things were worse than the platforms and pits combined.

But Aphid was ahead and waiting for them.

Again, Yuu moved before they could talk themself out of it. As Aphid had suggested, they jumped straight up and then struck downward as hard as they could with the nail.

The blade caught before they saw the metal tip actually strike the mushroom, and suddenly they were bouncing much higher than before.

Too high, too high! Yuu flailed midair as they nearly overshot the mushroom they’d been aiming for.

They still managed to hit it, striking again with the nail, and continuing the process, bouncing forward with alarming speed and little to no control.

If Yuu believed in karma (a thing they’d learn about much later) they’d say the universe was trying to make up for nearly killing them back in the Queen’s Gardens. That was the only way they could explain how they made it to the halfway point without falling into the acid.

Instead of striking and bouncing again, Yuu tried their best to stop their momentum when they got to the last mushroom before the ceiling lowered. Thorns covered the rock until all they could see was a tangle of green and red, and Yuu really hoped there wouldn’t be as many thorns in the Fingal Wastes as there were in the Gardens.

Below them, the mushroom bounced and swayed with the impact of their landing, and Yuu was forced to stab it with Aphid’s nail so they weren’t thrown off. When it finally stopped moving, they realized they’d been clutching the nail so tightly that they couldn’t feel their hands.

“I know you can’t really answer me,” Aphid said, and her voice was much closer than Yuu had expected it to be. “But I didn’t hear any splashing, so I’m going to assume you didn’t fall in and are just taking your sweet time getting across.” There was tension in her voice, the kind that Yuu associated with pacing. They briefly imagined her stalking along the opposite bank, worried that Yuu wouldn’t make it, that they might set the two back even further.

Yuu stared ahead. The ceiling lowered, but they were short enough that they should still be able to jump normally as long as they were careful.

With the mushroom as stable as it was going to be, they found no reason to wait any longer. Again, they jumped up and then struck the purple below them. Again, they were sent into the air, limbs flailing as they tried to maintain their course.

By some miracle, they managed to dart across, body slamming into the next nearest mushroom and nail digging into the thick flesh before they could slip off.

“Not much further,” Aphid said, and when Yuu hauled themselves up, they saw her standing at the very edge of the opposite ledge. She was leaning forward more than they were comfortable with.

Arms shaking with effort, Yuu slowly righted themself and stared across the remaining acid. Just a few mushrooms more and they would be on solid ground again. The thought gave them energy, and Yuu jumped up again before they could think too much on how much they wanted to go to sleep.

Bounce, bounce, bounce, with each consecutive leap, Yuu’s flight was growing less and less coordinated. Not that they had much control to begin with, but their last desperate leap sent them spinning high into the air, tumbling as they fell no matter how hard they tried to right themself.

Falling from that height was far from fatal (Yuu’s never taken damage just from falling, only from some things they’d fallen on) but they weren’t looking forward to hitting the ground.

Luckily, Aphid caught them before they did.

Overwhelmed and shaking and unsure whether it was from exertion, scared, or being grateful that they were no longer flying over acid, Yuu curled up in her arms and clutched their scarf close to their chest.

“Good job,” Aphid told them. She gently tugged her nail from their grip, turning it so neither were accidentally cut by the blade. “You did really well. I realize it was a bit unfair of me to bring us this way; you keep up with me so well that I forget sometimes, just how small you are.”

Yuu found themself burrowing deeper into their scarf. She was saying nice things and they weren’t sure what to do about it.

Slowly, Aphid lowered them both to the ground and then set Yuu down. “This place is as safe as any,” she told them. “We can rest here for a bit before continuing. The Village mantises don’t patrol this far north, and as far as I know, the traitors stay in the gardens. From here to Greenpath, the most dangerous things we should face are infected husks.”

Yuu was already in the process of tugging green mossfly fluff out of their void and putting it on the ground so they could lie down on it, so they only caught about every other word of what she was saying. It sounded good though, so they didn’t worry too much.

Given the area was safer than anywhere they’d been in recently, neither were in any hurry to leave. Both slept a bit. Aphid poked around some mushrooms, trying to figure out if any edible kinds grew there. Yuu vented their feelings toward the bouncy mushrooms and acid pools by drawing mantis traitors falling into them. They felt that seeing such a thing in reality would make them feel quite sick despite their past experiences, but seeing it on paper was nice.

Finally, when both grew too restless to keep sitting still, Aphid and Yuu moved on.

Though they tried to give it back as soon as they had the energy and will to do so, Aphid insisted that Yuu hold onto the Mark of Pride until they leave the Wastes. Apparently, their first experience with the purple mushrooms would not be their last.

This was not great news to Yuu, but the next few encounters were made slightly better by the fact that they needed to use the mushrooms to clear high obstacles and did not need to cross over large pools of acid again.

While she let Yuu keep her charm, Aphid took her nail back when the vessel wasn’t using it. This turned out to be a wise decision as the two encountered more and more infected bugs. None were as dangerous as the mantises (traitor or otherwise), but most required a strike from a nail to be deterred from attacking the two travelers as they passed through.

All around, the Fungal Wastes only seemed to grow more humid. Yuu felt damp and slimy all over even though they hadn’t touched anything wet. They decisively didn’t like the Fungal Wastes, though they had to admit that they enjoyed being in less danger than before. They had no doubt that traveling through the area alone would result in more than a few setbacks, but with Aphid, the two wandered from cavern to cavern with hardly any trouble.

Yuu didn’t exactly enjoy the bugs that jumped up to attack them and Aphid, but they couldn’t help but find the encounters less scary than the ones they’d had before. Instead of swarming and biting dirtcarvers or angry mantises throwing boomerangs, there were screaming mushrooms and exploding plants and big round bugs that floated through the air and made high pitched squeaky noises when Aphid struck them.

Though infected, Yuu thought the surrounding bugs were kind of nice. It was sad that Aphid had to put them down when she did, but they’d rather she kill the infected than the infected, well…

The two stopped to rest again in a large cavern. There were a few infected bugs wandering around aimlessly, but Aphid and Yuu found a ledge that was high enough that the infected didn’t notice them.

“This is a crossroads of sorts,” Aphid said.

Yuu looked up from where they were drawing out a new map. Looking at their other maps, they disliked the fact that they were so incomplete. While they hadn’t explored all of Deepnest or the Queen’s Gardens or even the Abyss, they wished they could at least have it on paper. They didn’t want to think too much on it, but Yuu hoped they could go back one day and complete their maps. They wanted to know the entirety of the places they’d been, the places they’d survived.

“The way we came by leads to the Queen’s Gardens, of course,” Aphid continued. Then she turned and nodded to a tunnel on the opposite wall. The trail that led through seemed to spiral slowly downward. “That direction will take us to the Mantis Village if we follow it south.”

Yuu stared for a moment and then looked back down to their map. It felt so strange, thinking of the Mantis village. Stumbling across it that first time felt like it took place several lifetimes ago. That was when they’d first met Aphid. Before, they didn’t know a bug like her even existed.

The thought made them feel hollow, so they pushed it aside and refocused on the map in their hands.

“The path above us, though.” Aphid looked up, indicating a series of ledges and cracked stone and rockslides that led north. “If we go far enough, we’d wind up in the Crossroads, and if we went further north from there, we’d wind up on the surface. I don’t remember the name of the town that sits above Hallownest, but I recall it being a sad place. Hardly anyone was there when I first arrived, and that was before the kingdom fell.”

Yuu looked up again. They forced away any earlier thoughts on their purpose and the light. They needed to get to the surface, right? Void was below the bottom of the kingdom and the Light was above the top.

“The Wastes don’t directly link up with Greenpath,” Aphid admitted. “It’s been a while since I’ve been this far north, and I forgot about that. If that’s still where we’re headed, we’ll have to cut through Fog Canyon. Don’t worry,” she continued before Yuu could ask. “Fog Canyon’s even safer than the Wastes as long as you don’t touch anything. There’s more acid, but you won’t need mushrooms to get across, and there’s only one kind of bug that lives there, and they won’t cause trouble as long as you leave them alone.”

Well, that sounded like Yuu’s favorite kind of bug.

Another road caught their eye, and Yuu pointed at it. An old signpost indicated that it led _somewhere_ interesting.

“Ah…” Aphid was silent for a long while. Yuu was about to point again when she continued to speak. “We’re on the west side of the Wastes, closer to the Gardens and Fog Canyon. That way leads East, to the capitol city.”

Capitol city?

“I’m not much of an urban bug, and I hate the rain. Even before the infection took over, I’d never actually been to the City of Tears. By the time I considered moving there, the gates had closed. No one went in, and no one came out. Sometimes, we could hear screaming on the other side of the barrier. Everything’s been quiet for a while now, though.”

Yuu wasn’t sure what to make of that. They knew of the infection and they understood their role in containing it, but they had no idea of what it was like when Hallownest was in the process of falling. Or better yet, what was the kingdom like before its inhabitants succumbed? What was a city like without the infection?

It also occurred to them that they only knew what a city was in theory. Their first idea was that it looked like the mantis village except bigger and with even more angry bugs trying to kill them, but they didn’t know for sure. They hoped it wasn’t like that. They wanted to know, to see for themself. The kingdom was so much bigger than they’d ever imagined. They wanted to see it all!

And why shouldn’t they? The pure vessel was containing the Radiance and there was most likely nothing Yuu could do to help them. If they truly had no purpose, why shouldn’t they go where they like?

Then again, it sounded like Aphid didn’t want to go to the city. That shouldn’t stop them, but if Yuu had no other purpose, why not go where she was going?

You said there’s somewhere you need to be, right?” Aphid said, looking back to Yuu. “You never told me where that is.”

Yuu looked back to the map in their hands. Again, they found they had the time and means to explain their nature and their purpose, and again they found themself hesitating.

Since their creation, everything they’d encountered had tried to kill them. They’d been attacked, chased, and sometimes broken by both the infected and now uninfected. So far, Aphid was the only exception. She thought they were a bug. She gave them things and worried when they got hurt and saved them from traitors and thorns.

If she knew what they were, would that change?

Yuu’s thoughts went to Hornet. She knew what they were, and as far as Yuu could understand, that was why she attacked. Not because they strayed onto her territory and not because the light compelled her to destroy the void. Vessels were to be destroyed. This is a truth Yuu had understood for a while, but it felt different, being confronted by in such a coldly logical way.

“You don’t gotta tell me,” Aphid said when Yuu couldn’t decide. “But Greenpath is still okay, yeah? It’s where I intend to end up, but I told you I’d take you where you need to go first.”

That was interesting. She’d brought up Greenpath before, but this was the first time that Aphid named it as her end destination. Decisively ignoring their thoughts on their own destination and purpose, Yuu patted the ground and pointed at her. Why Greenpath?

“Not entirely sure what you’re asking,” she told them. “Sorry.”

Yuu held up their hands. They didn’t know how to draw Greenpath and thus didn’t know of a better way to ask. They tried pointing to the path that led to the Queen’s station (and then Fog Canyon and then Greenpath) and then patted the ground again, looking back to Aphid.

“Why Greenpath?” Aphid asked slowly.

A nod.

“No real reason, I guess.” Aphid got to her feet and stretched. “I can’t go back to the tribe and I’m not about to spend the rest of my life dealing with Deepnest or mantis traitors. The city’s closed off, the town above is probably just as dead as everything else down here, and there’s no point in leaving the kingdom since I can’t go back home…” she gave a harsh sigh. “I guess I just have nowhere else better to go, so Greenpath seems as good a place to die as any.”

Yuu wasn’t sure they fully understood what she meant, but they were concerned about the way she said it.

“Maybe I’ll come up with a better reason on the way. For now, let’s get going. We’re far outside the tribe’s territory, but being back in the middle of the Wastes is making me nervous.”

Despite still considering Aphid's words, Yuu was happy to get moving again. Movement was good. Even if they weren’t entirely sure where they were going or why, at least they knew they were going _somewhere_.


	11. Chapter 11

The caverns narrowed when the two continued forward toward the Queen’s station. There weren’t as many purple mushrooms to bounce off of, but there were also fewer places where the two travelers needed to use them.

Rather than the purple bouncy kind, other mushrooms sprouted in the darker passageways. Yuu still didn’t like the damp squishy environment they were growing in, but they could admire the shapes and colors. The round tops were nice for some reason, and they truly had never seen so many colors in one place! Once past the acid, it was easier to appreciate the beauty in such a strange place. Again, Yuu wished they had a way to add color to their drawings.

A small squeaking noise drew their attention. Ahead, the mushrooms were swaying as two small mushrooms ran through.

The shrumelings looked very much like the larger screaming mushrooms, but these were so small! They were so tiny that Yuu could pick one up if they wanted to.

They decided they really wanted to pick one up.

Aphid laughed as Yuu darted forward, chasing the small mushrooms down the hall. “Go get ‘em!” she called.

The tiny things squeaked and chirped, little legs scurrying just out of reach of the vessel’s grabbing hands. They led Yuu further along the path, and the vessel somehow felt lighter with each step. The little mushrooms weren’t hurting them, and they had no intention of hurting the shrumelings. This was just a chase for the sake of it, and Yuu found themself delighting in the activity.

They dove after one of the shrumelings, finally managing to grab one after crashing through a collection of smaller, stationary mushrooms.

Yuu looked down at their catch as it squeaked and squirmed. They were glad they caught it, though they didn’t know what to do with it now that they had it. It was such a strange little thing, tiny legs thrashing in the empty air as Yuu held it in front of them. Its rounded head was a dull spotted green-blue. It didn’t seem to have a mouth, so where was the squeaking coming from?

Though they continued not to hurt it, the shrumeling didn’t cease in its squeaking and squirming. It really didn’t want to be held. Yuu figured they should let it go if it felt that strongly about it.

They set the shrumeling down carefully, only letting go when its little feet were back on the ground. The shrumeling did not seem grateful, immediately breaking from their hold and running away as fast as its tiny legs would carry it.

Now alone, Yuu felt quite foolish. They’d enjoyed that little adventure, but it was more than pointless. Not only was it a waste of energy, it was dangerous. As focused as they were on their little hunt, they’d been completely unaware of their surroundings, and Aphid was a way behind, catching up at her own pace.

They were standing in a pale structure. Not quite a room as it was open on two sides, but too short to be a hall. The glass ceiling made the light feel even stronger there, heating the space and making the air even more damp. Mushrooms of all sizes grew along the walls and floor, and the ground was extra squishy underfoot.

The shrumeling’s squeaking was the only sound as it continued to run from Yuu.

Yuu was happy to just watch it go while they waited for Aphid, but then more movement drew their attention.

Still panicking and still squeaking, the shrumeling ran past a much larger mushroom. The bigger shroom had looked entirely stationary until the noise roused it.

Yuu took a step back as the massive mushroom gave a rumbling cry and came to life before their eyes. It stood on four stumpy legs and stared with tiny drooping eyes. The thing paused when it saw Yuu. Then it gave another cry, tipped its head back, and spat a wad of glowing infection at them.

Their previous excitement swiftly splintering into alarm, Yuu tripped over their own feet as they backed away from the gelatinous infection that landed on the ground before them. It glowed a terrible orange and wobbled menacingly where it landed.

More infection was spat into the air and then rained down around the vessel as Yuu continued to scramble backward. They had enjoyed chasing the little shrumeling, but they sincerely regretted the decision.

At the very least, the massive mushroom didn’t move very fast, and it didn’t seem interested in pursuing any further once Yuu had gotten out of range of its infectious attack.

When Aphid finally caught up, she paused at the entrance to the space. Her masked face was tilted toward Yuu, taking in how they crouched behind a stationary mushroom while hiding from the infected mushroom that was still periodically spewing infection.

“Have fun, did ya?” Aphid asked, her voice light despite the threat still lumbering around and spitting infection.

Yuu just pointed to the monstrosity on the other side of the space.

“A shrumel ogre,” Aphid said, following their gaze to the lumbering creature. She hummed and tilted her head, considering what lay ahead. “Since taking the southern route around would put us too close to mantis territory, going around would take us through the Crossroads. Admittedly, I don’t want to go up there. It’s the one place I haven’t been since the infection. Call it foolish or selfish, but I’d like my memories of the place to remain the way they are.”

Yuu wondered what those memories looked like. How much had the kingdom been changed? They couldn’t imagine a Hallownest without the threat of aggressive infected. It must have been nice.

Aphid’s wings twitched and she gestured ahead. “Shrumel ogres are slow and they don’t move far from where they grow. I’m pretty much healed and you apparently have enough energy to chase shrumelings halfway across the Wastes, so I think we’re good to just run through.”

Even as she spoke, the shrumel ogre was settling down. It didn’t seem to notice her or Yuu even though they were well within line of sight.

They nodded, though they really didn’t like the idea. Looking back on it, the shrumel ogre made them think a bit of the stalking devout. The main difference was acidic infection instead of gleaming claws, but both were big lumbering things that could easily kill a vessel.

Yuu looped their scarf more firmly around their neck and gestured for Aphid to lead the way.

Though they didn’t like the situation, it was good to see Aphid run again. Sure, she’d crossed the acid just fine, but this was different. ‘Enjoy’ was a strong word, but Yuu couldn’t deny that she looked a lot more enthusiastic about darting around the shrumel ogre. The lumbering thing roared and spat more acid, but none came close to touching her, and before it could spit again, Aphid was on the other side.

In fact, as Yuu raced to keep up, Aphid ran back through, drawing the ogre’s attention away as the vessel made their escape. More acid landed around her feet, but still none touched her shell.

Yuu reached the other side and waved their arms in an attempt to get her to stop antagonizing the infected mushroom.

On the return journey, a step brough Aphid very close to the ogre itself. She was gone a moment later, and the shrumel ogre started slamming its head against the ground where she’d been standing just a moment before.

And it kept going, even when Aphid joined Yuu on the other side.

“The Wastes are a hell of a place to live, huh?” Aphid mused, watching the shrumel ogre continue to beat its head against the ground.

Didn’t that hurt?

“Truthfully, this part of Hallownest hasn’t changed too much since the infection,” Aphid continued. “As far as I know, the Wastes have always been under the mantis’ control, and the treaty stated the King would leave well enough alone as long as the Village kept Deepnest within Deepnest. We’re not far now.” She stepped around Yuu and led the way forward. The caverns were beginning to widen again, more purple mushrooms sprouting amid the other varieties. In the distance, the weird round bugs floated lazily above a pool of acid.

Though they agreed that the Wastes were an interesting place (and certainly less deadly than Deepnest and the Gardens), Yuu felt a lot better when Aphid told them they didn’t need to bounce on mushrooms again.

“The Queen’s Station should still be relatively safe,” she told them as the two walked along a more formal road. The carved stone beneath their feet was worn smooth, suggesting just how many others had walked before them. “We can rest there, and you can give me my charm back.”

Yuu nodded, content to skip along as they followed. They looked forward to an opportunity to sit and draw and pick the bits of dirt and debris from the end of their scarf.

“I guess I’ll have to wait until Greenpath to hunt again,” Aphid muttered, speaking more to herself than Yuu. “Then again, I wonder if Uoma are edible?”

Her voice dropped off when she and Yuu reached what looked to be a massive hall. Both travelers paused at the edge of the upper platform and looked down.

Yuu had never seen anything like the Queen’s Station.

The structure was built into a wide cavern, the space opening up like a whole new world as Yuu stepped as close to the edge of the platform as they could without falling off. The pale weathered stone was carved into intricate patterns along the bottoms of platforms, and cracked roads crisscrossed through the lowest level. Numerous signs decorated the walls and hung from posts. Smaller abandoned structures dotted along the wall on the middle platform.

As they continued to stare, Yuu’s hands came up to grip their scarf and press the fabric close to their chest. This was the first place they’d seen that they felt truly reflected the former grandeur of Hallownest. Even empty and crumbling and with plants growing from cracks in the stone, it was beautiful.

Equal to its beauty was the resounding feeling of emptiness it instilled. Never before had Yuu seen a place that was so obviously meant to be inhabited. There were supposed to be bugs there, bugs of all kinds. Travelers and merchants and artists and students and miners and menders; the air should be buzzing with voices and footsteps, the ground should rumble from the crowds. Even having never seen it before, Yuu knew this to be true.

Seeing such a place completely empty except for themself and Aphid made something in their chest hurt. It was a strange reverence that kept their footsteps even quieter than usual when they followed Aphid down to one of the lower platforms. Yuu could almost hear the multitudes of voices and the ringing of the bells.

Was it possible that, in the absence of the life it was so obviously meant to contain, the echoes of the past were beginning to bleed through to the present?

Of course it wasn’t, but Yuu still kept closer to Aphid than usual. They’d never felt as if they were wading through a crowd while alone before.

Aphid likewise seemed affected by the suffocating emptiness. She didn’t speak as she wandered along the platforms. Her steps were deliberately soft and slow, as if walking while asleep. Her hands fidgeted with her belt and she looked very much like she wanted something to hold.

Without speaking, the two eventually settled in an open room carved into the wall along the middle platform. Aphid sat down with her back against the wall and Yuu sat beside her. For a long while, neither spoke or otherwise tried to interact with the other.

Ancient papers dotted the wall. Most just had writing that Yuu couldn’t read, but some had little pictures too. There was a signpost that pointed to something on the lower platform. Yuu had seen a similar sign back at the Distant Village in Deepnest. That one had been broken in half.

A few corpses lay in the corner. Somehow, their presence made Yuu feel a bit better: it was like seeing evidence of the life they knew used to pulse through that place.

The silence was a living breathing thing, and the two travelers quietly let it have its say. Aphid tilted her head back against the wall. With her mask on, it was hard to tell if she was asleep or not. Yuu carefully picked pieces of rock and dirt from their scarf.

Time passed in a way that was impossible to measure. Days might have passed, or maybe it was only minutes.

Eventually, the strange feeling of intruding upon someone’s memory faded enough for Yuu to pull out their drawing things and fill out more of their map. The scratch of their quill against the parchment was the loudest thing they’d heard since entering the station.

When the map was updated, they pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and proceeded to draw the station itself. This turned out to be a very frustrating venture; no matter how hard Yuu studied the space around them or how carefully they dragged their quill across the page, their rendition failed to accurately reflect their surroundings.

Maybe it was because their drawing lacked the heavy atmosphere created when a place meant to be crowded was abandoned. Yuu didn’t know how to draw that.

They were halfway through drawing the corpses in the corner when Aphid finally spoke.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Her voice was subdued and hollow. She sounded like she was sharing a secret.

Yuu set their quill down and looked at her. They weren’t sure what she meant. They tilted their head curiously.

“Ghosts… ghosts are like the living spirit of something that’s dead. They’re echoes of life, of what used to be, remnants of past regrets and failures. They’re like scars left upon the world when a life ends too soon, or too terribly, or with too much left undone.”

Yuu’s hands gripped their scarf again and they found themself looking at their feet. Described like that, one could argue that vessels were ghosts. Ghosts of Hallownest, or ghosts of the King’s intent, either way, the impure ones only reflected hurt and failure.

“This kingdom is haunted,” Aphid continued. “It has to be. Nothing created of so many bad decisions and so much death can exist without ghosts. It’s one thing to see the possessed corpses that crawl out of Deepnest, or the infected mantises who chose to betray the tribe. It’s another to see evidence of what could have been.” She sighed. In her hands, she held her nail, fingertips testing the sharpness of the blade. “Such a waste,” she said.

Yuu looked down at the paper in front of them. Inky dead eyes stared back at them. They tucked that piece away and grabbed a blank sheet.

Aphid was silent again and Yuu found themself drawing more vessels. Given how many vessels there were, Yuu didn’t remember many individuals. There were too many and too much time had passed. Still, they could recall a few faces that escaped the abyss with them. They remembered the pure vessel. They remembered some of the vessels that died in Deepnest. They remembered a vessel who chased after the pure vessel and then fell all the way back to the bottom of the Abyss.

As they drew, another thought wormed its way into their mind. Was it worth it?

The Abyss was filled with Hallownest’s regret, Hallownest’s ghosts. A single pure vessel was produced out of the thousands created. Was it worth it, all that death and all those regrets, to contain the Old Light? The infection burned through the kingdom anyway. The capitol city (the City of Tears) had fallen silent. Deepnest and the Gardens were overrun with the infected and the dead. The Queen’s station was empty.

The vessels that survived were chasing after a purpose they couldn’t fulfill in a dead kingdom where everything both living and dead wanted to kill them.

Was any of it worth it? What did they escape the Abyss for?

Yuu’s shade twisted in their stomach and they suddenly found sitting unbearable. They got to their feet and wandered around the area. They looked out at the empty station for a bit, but the lonely emptiness felt louder than ever, and they soon retreated from the edge. They looked at the papers that covered the wall. Some had pictures of bugs on them. One had a picture of a mushroom.

Despite the scare that followed, Yuu had enjoyed chasing that shrumeling around. They had a feeling that, if given the opportunity, they’d do it again. They liked their scarf. The fabric was old and had holes in it, but it was nice to touch. It was warm. It was something that Yuu owned, something that belonged to them. Flying with Aphid had been nice. Strange, but nice. Maybe one day they could go flying without a sea of thorns beneath them, or a horde of infected mantises chasing them.

Even if there was no real point to them being there, maybe it was ok to just enjoy it anyway. Chasing mushrooms and wearing their scarf and traveling with Aphid; Yuu felt like it was worth the risks of being attacked and damaged and broken. Maybe that was alright even if the sacrifices made during their creation weren’t worth it to the rest of Hallownest.

Whatever unease had gripped their shade a moment ago faded. They returned to where Aphid still sat. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe Yuu should sleep too.

They pulled out the green mossfly fluff they had and set it on the ground. They again wished they’d grabbed their collection from the thorny hollow back in the Gardens. Maybe one day they could go back and retrieve it. Then again, Aphid wanted to go hunting soon. Did Greenpath have mossflies? They hoped so.

Yuu curled up on their tiny cushion of fluff and looped their scarf around so it half covered their head.

Something hard tapped against their mask, and Yuu realized they still had Aphid’s charm.

They didn’t want to sleep on it (they were still half worried it would explode if they moved wrong) so they carefully unpinned it from their scarf and then sat up, intending to return it to Aphid.

She was asleep, or at least, Yuu was pretty sure she was. They should probably wait until she woke. But they didn’t want to just set it on the ground until then. What if they forgot it? Or accidentally stepped on it? (and then it exploded??)

They were considering carefully dropping it into her hand while she slept when Aphid shifted, raised one hand and tilted her mask up. “I’m awake,” she told them.

Relieved, Yuu held up the Mark of Pride.

“Oh, right. I forgot about that.” Aphid took her charm back and began fastening it to her belt. “You know,” she said when the task was complete. She glanced briefly at Yuu and then looked out over the station. “Between the mantises and the princess knight and then the acid and the mushrooms, I can’t recall; did I ever apologize for attacking you back in the Gardens?”

Yuu looked at her, surprised. The incident felt like several lifetimes ago. 

“Well, either way, I am sorry about it. You’ve probably realized by now, but it was an accident; I didn’t mean to.” A pause. “Bugs can be haunted too, and though I intended to leave my ghosts at the border, a few still managed to follow me here. Anyway, I’m sorry. I want to say it won’t happen again, but I can’t promise it.”

Yuu wasn’t sure what to make of that. Aphid looked tired and hurt, and like she was looking at something far beyond the opposite walls of the Station. With her wounds mostly healed, Yuu had a feeling that the injury she was suffering from was the kind they couldn’t see or touch. How could they help with something like that?

As with any other time their hands grew too restless to ignore, Yuu grabbed another piece of parchment and started drawing. They drew Aphid as she sat beside them, her mask tilted up and turquoise eyes tiredly staring out over the abandoned station. Somehow, her presence made the rendition work; it was easier to show tired loneliness on a bug.

When the picture was finished, they offered it to Aphid, prodding her arm with it when she didn’t notice at first.

“For me?” she asked.

A nod.

She took the parchment carefully, holding it like she expected the paper to disintegrate in her hands. “You really are good at this, considering you’ve apparently never used a quill before I showed you in Deepnest,” she said quietly. One hand raised and tugged her mask back down until it once again obscured her face. “Why do you trust me so much? You don’t know me.”

Why? Yuu thought the logic was fairly obvious. It took a while for them to sort through the various drawing they’d done since Deepnest (there were more than they realized), but eventually they were able to find the one they wanted. They’d drawn Aphid saving them a few different times (she’d certainly done so enough that they had a lot to choose from) but one specific incident led to the rest. They held it up to show her.

“When I saved you back at the Mantis Village,” Aphid said.“Well, when I _tried_ to save you. I didn’t do that right either.”

Maybe not, but she was the first one that’s ever tried. At the time, Yuu hadn’t thought it made a difference. Given all that’s happened since then, they realized that it had. It made all the difference. Where would they be if they hadn’t met Aphid? Most likely still in Deepnest, if not back in the Abyss.

Aphid was quiet again, and Yuu took that as permission to sleep for a bit. When they woke, Aphid was still beside them, still holding the picture they’d given her, and still staring down at it as if it held whatever answer she was looking for.

She spoke without looking when she noticed Yuu stretch and sit up. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get going soon. Nothing bad has gotten in here so far, but I don’t trust it to stay that way, especially since we’re here.” She stood with a sigh and then wandered to the edge of the platform.

A fair point. Though they still found the station’s hollow beauty captivating, they looked forward to seeing whatever would come next.

Yuu got to their feet and tucked their drawing things and bundle of green fluff back into their void. Then they dusted off their scarf and looped it more securely around their shoulders.

When they joined Aphid at the platform’s edge, she was still holding the picture they’d given her. When they were close enough, she handed it back to them.

“Do you mind holding onto this for me? I don’t have pockets or a bag.” Aphid’s head tilted, considering the vessel. “I guess you don’t either. Still, you seem better able to keep it safe. I won’t ask where it goes.”

Yuu thought that was fair. They weren’t sure how to explain their void and didn’t really want to try anyhow. They took the picture back and tucked it away along with all the others.


End file.
